Idles, Glasgow review: 'lairy jabbering and piledriving payoffs'

Joe Talbot of Idles | AFP via Getty Images

Idles, Hydro, Glasgow ★★★★

Idles frontman Joe Talbot told his biggest Scottish audience to date that he was conceived in Glasgow, though born in Wales. With a mix of regret and glee, he acknowledged he can only claim that his seed is Scottish. Maybe this was why he altered the title of one of this Bristolian band’s most anthemic songs to Never Fight a Man with a Scottish Passport.

Idles’ set began with smoke, silhouettes and subtlety but this unfettered rock band can only hold the line for so long. Even their more restrained numbers fizzed with a sense of potential energy and the opening moodinesss was abruptly replaced with diabolic chords, gruff delivery and permission to go mental to Colossus. Flailing rag doll guitarist Mark Bowen demonstrated the beautiful art of crowdsurfing and Talbot actually whinnied in delight.

From here, they unleashed a succession of grungey propulsive basslines over which Talbot chanted in ripe fashion. He offered love songs which sound painful and songs about addiction which bounced with Tigger-like abandon.

The set pinballed from the lairy jabbering of I’m Scum to the nosebleed furore of Divide and Conquer, featuring Talbot bellowing like a wounded animal, to the rumbling bass, groaning guitar and piledriving payoff of Gratitude and the heatseeking power of War. At one point, it seemed like half the musicians were down in the crowd with a circle pit of protection forming around them.

The swaggering ballad Beachland Ballroom was an opportunity to catch breath before Dancer’s saxophone-powered invitation to the hips and Danny Nedelko, the punky singalong celebration of a Ukrainian immigrant chum which first put Idles on the map. Finally, a quick acapella burst of Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas prefaced the headlong release of Rottweiler, leaving Talbot unshaken in his “firm belief that you are the best audience on the planet”.