Gig review: Rudimental, Glasgow

THIS was one of those gigs with the unmistakable feel of a band bang on trend right now, and sitting pretty on the top of the charts – Waiting All Night, 2013’s biggest first-week sales single so far, having last Sunday given these Londoners their second No1 of their career to date.

Oran Mor

****

Splicing very Nineties-sounding drum and bass (yes, that’s what’s bang on trend right now) with soulful vocals and a little dose of anything-goes eclecticism (new tracks debuted here embraced everything from house to disco and reggae), Rudimental’s imminent debut album, Home, looks a safe bet to become one of the biggest releases of the year. Bear in mind that they haven’t even got around to releasing two tunes with feat credits for the current can-do-no-wrong queen of British pop, Emeli Sandé.

Unsurprisingly, with festival season just round corner, this tour-opener felt like a performance designed for bigger venues, as nine bodies squeezed on stage. Among them, Rudimental’s booming-voiced MC Kesi Dryden, vocalists Sinead Harnett and Ella Eyre, a roving trumpeter and a guitarist who occasionally emerged stage-front for a blast of Peter Frampton-style talk-box guitar. All of them appeared locked in what looked like a competition to out go-for-it each other as turbo-charged beats dropped.

The crowd responded in kind. Not Giving In saw hands raised aloft ready for the inevitable bedlam of the finale. Inescapable hit of last summer Feel The Love – featuring new young crooner John Newman, handily in tow as support act – inspired a mass sing-along, a euphoric reception only topped when Waiting All Night finally arrived, the charging anthem that will lead this band to sweep all before them throughout the warm months.