Review: The View - ABC, Glasgow

WHETHER you call it the Christmas party spirit or put it down to the school’s-out mentality of the season, The View were at the centre of a teenage rampage when their festive mini-tour hit its Glasgow leg.

Even though their third album, Bread and Circuses, released earlier this year, has not sold as well as its predecessors, someone has been keeping the faith. Tickets were snapped up in 20 minutes and energy and expectation ran high; The View simply had to conduct that electricity.

Their Dundonian wrecking crew reputation precedes them but, at their best, they can project a controlled chaos, a sense that the whole show could collapse at any moment were they not running full-tilt at their set. Spurred on by the hell-for-leather playing of drummer “Crazy” Mo, the music was mostly dispatched with the same fervour, whether they were playing one of their punky party tunes, a pugnacious rabble-rouser or an ambivalent love song such as Blondie.

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The View don’t go in for ballads or the token acoustic solo spots of some of their peers. Their closest equivalent was letting bassist Kieren Webster take the lead on a couple of their more perverse, musically inarticulate numbers. This coincided with an obvious mid-set lull in proceedings when the tune count dipped considerably.

But for the most part, The View have the noise/melody equilibrium licked. Their brio and momentum would not count for much without the accompanying hook lines, and the pumped-up crowd definitely favoured the raucous and celebratory sing-alongs such as Grace and Same Jeans and the headlong charges such as Wasted Little DJs and Superstar Tradesman. All The View need for Christmas is a little more consistency.

RATING: ***

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