Gig review: Kassidy, Barrowland

Kassidy seemed determined to come out with all guns blazing for the occasion, overcompensating at first for their unusual front line of four singers with acoustic guitars by setting the volume at painful levels and pounding out every track through their gargantuan speaker stacks with little concern for subtlety or dynamism.

Former single Take Another Ride bucked the heavy-handed roots rock onslaught with its teasing slow build towards a good lusty pop chorus, but Chris Potter’s reggae-tinged solo was less well crafted, while a new piano-led number, One Man Army, appeared to have borrowed most of its ideas from the Oasis school of middle-of-the-road rock balladry. However, the performance took a turn for the better with a raucous a cappella number, which showed off their harmonies to best advantage and was more inherently energetic and arresting than any of their accompanied songs.

The upbeat blues of Oh My God was also dispatched with verve and attitude, making friends with the partying audience rather than bludgeoning them into submission. But the same could not be said for the closing Stray Cat – imagine a trad take on Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out – which descended into the staged chaos of a freakout ending, culminating in the trashing of a defenceless acoustic guitar. The requiem mass for the loss of such a loyal friend took the form of a dirgey encore cover of Lana Del Rey’s Video Games.

Rating: ***