Future Islands, Glasgow review: 'more than the sum of their parts'

Future Islands frontman Samuel T Herring | AFP via Getty Images

Future Islands, Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow ****

 

Future Islands are a special live band who always somehow seem to add up to more than the sum of their sonic parts - never more so than on this perfect August night in Glasgow, with shades of pink, green and blue reflected in the stunning dusk sky above Kelvingrove Bandstand.

The Baltimore group are also surely the today’s most successful and long-lasting “one-hit wonders”. If anyone knows anything about them, it’s probably Samuel T Herring’s jerky dad-dancing and death metal growl when they played Seasons (Waiting on You) on David Letterman’s show a decade ago.

 

People love that song’s sleek, synthetic sense of yearning, and it was received here with swoons and screams of excitement, as Herring breakdanced and pelvic-thrusted. It had pride of place in their setlist, but at the side of the mantelpiece; three songs from the end of the main set, before Long Flight and its springy, infectious Peter Hook-style bassline, and the even more vividly energising New Wave rocker Tin Man.

 

For the other 90 minutes, though, the band still captured the audience’s attention. From new record People Who Aren’t There Anymore, expanding on its themes of love and loss, The Thief bore an intriguing story about Herring apparently housebreaking when he was younger, while The Sickness and The Garden Wheel sat together as a diptych, detailing bad times and recovery like spring following winter.

 

At the heart of it all, Herring was a beacon of magnetic, emotive charisma, literally barking out some songs, duetting beautifully on Shadows with support act Joon in the Debbie Harry role and dedicating Corner of My Eye to “someone I loved very much, who I may never see again”. A night to remember.