Music – Milky Chance

Milky Chance

O2 Academy, Glasgow

ABOUT ten minutes into the set, Milky Chance were sending their young fans into raptures with Fado, the Portuguese folk-tinged electro-pop opener from their latest album Mind The Moon. Thick of moustache and half-masted of trousers, frontman Clemens Rehbein switched from guitar to synths, ready to take the song to its clubby climactic coda. Then, horribly, the wrong noise came honking from his instrument, everything abruptly stopped, the stage lights came on and everyone stood around blinking at one another in confusion.

It’s rare to see a slick show like this come so wildly off the rails, and it was hard not to laugh. At least until they promptly played the entire track again from the start.

Occasional technical glitches notwithstanding, things seem to be going very much in this genre-fluid, dodgily-monikered German ensemble’s favour right now. Certainly the Spotify algorithms appear to support their cause, having helped push Milky Chance – think a kind of Euro Maroon 5, or Maroon Fünf, if you’d prefer – to a billion-plus streams and counting, presumably among the same student demographic that made up the audience here.

Shiny-funky numbers such as Fallen and Blossom were Eurovision quality cheeseballs. In fact, considering Germany’s poor showing in the contest in recent years they could do worse than putting these guys in. A diversion into cod reggae felt inevitable, and so it came with The Game.

“Is everybody ready to go really crazy?” enquired Rehbein enthusiastically, as Milky Chance’s milkiest bangers Flashed Junk Mind and Stolen Dance were duly milked. The chorus of the latter earnestly entreated everyone to “do the boogie all night long”. But let’s just leave it there, shall we?

MALCOLM JACK