Review: Alter Bridge - SECC, Glasgow

AS ILLUSTRATED by the several occasions when thousands of fans followed black-clad, long-haired frontman Myles Kennedy’s lead in raising their hands aloft for some synchronised mid-song steady handclapping, Florida quartet Alter Bridge command a very large and dedicated following.

Which is impressive when you consider that they’re one of those American bands whose brand of heavy, melodic post-grunge rock doesn’t enjoy much mainstream crossover this side of the Atlantic.

A supergroup of sorts who share three members with Creed and one with Slash’s live band, theirs is a genre that attaches no stigma to wantonly flaunting your technical proficiency. If 90-minutes of speedy riffing, soaring vocals and clattering drums didn’t hammer home Alter Bridge’s candidacy for tightest outfit in the business, Kennedy and guitarist Mark Tremonti’s screeching, flaming-fingers axe duel during the encore must have done the job. It was all very impressive, though it was difficult to resist feeling a touch of schadenfreude when Kennedy’s equipment shorted out just as he was about to kick triumphantly into the next song.

Had that been all Alter Bridge were about then this show would have proven insufferably boring, but fortunately they weighted their blows with emotional punch. The show’s best moment was its quietest, when Kennedy – who was celebrating his birthday – took to a stool for a solo acoustic version of earnest ballad Wonderful Life and requested that the crowd “light this up like a birthday cake”, which they duly did by raising glowing cameraphones and cigarette lighters aloft to engineer an undeniably pretty spectacle.

RATING: ***