Glas-goes Pop arrived on the Glasgow music scene back in 2022 as a result of the creative energy of music fans Tita Geddes and Kenji Kenji. With a major focus on independent pop music, the first festival saw performances from the likes of Lawrence's Mozart Estate, Pete Astor from The Loft/The Weather Prophets, Close Lobsters and The Orchids.
The positive response meant that the friends could take things forward and in 2023 they brought together BMX Bandits, Stevie Jackson, Robert Forster and many more.
At my age, summer festivals are quite difficult to plan for, especially at the end of July when it is my wife's birthday and around the time of an annual wild camp with my daughters.
However, early rumours coming out of the Glas-goes pop socials hinted heavily that Gerry Love would be playing. I bought a weekend ticket and hoped that I'd be able to go.
And go I did! Although I merely scratched the surface in comparison to some indie-pop devotees who travelled from as far afield as Brazil, America and Japan, with many more coming from across Britain for a summer holiday in Glasgow and Scotland. Quite a few are staying up to check out Scotland and then come back to Glagsow for Belle and Sebastian's SWG3 weekender coming up.
On the Friday night, due to ongoing issues with trains, I opted to drive into the West End of Glasgow and the wonderful setting of the Glasgow University Debating Chambers.
I arrived in plenty of time to catch The Jasmine Minks, formerly of Creation Records. Indeed, their debut single Think! was released 40-years ago with the catalogue number CRE004. With 3 guitars on stage, The Minks created a beautiful racket, at times chiming, melodic and pure, at others, driven, raw and punky. New songs sounded superb alongside old, with Cut Me Deep being a personal favourite.
The Bluebells absolutely smashed it out the park. Arguably, they should have headlined. Ken McCluskey bounded about the stage with the energy of someone half his age. Daddy Was An Engineer was blue collared Glasgow bar soul music, Forever More was stunning, as was Red Guitars.
Bobby Bluebell and Ken McCluskey's voices gel effortlessly and the crowd lapped up the songs and between song banter. Some Sweet Day was ... sweet, Stonehouse Violets and Anyone Could Be a Buzzcock highlighted that the band, who formed in 1981, are still full of energy and capable of producing brilliant guitar pop.
Cath was brilliant and the crowd sang along. Bobby mentioned Alan Horne and Postcard before Everybody's Somebody's Fool, while I'm Falling was my personal favourite from their set. The flowing melodic chorus and then the sublime outro melted hearts. The room was pretty warm too!
Not many bands who play Glas-goes Pop will have appeared in Smash Hits, been on Pebble Mill and so on and so forth (as the band highlighted on stage), but then not many bands have a song like Young At Heart. It's an absolute gem of a song with an incredible chorus that can be sung heartily, whether you have known the song for years or just discovered it. Perhaps, the title describes the band perfectly, young at heart, still inspired by The Buzzcocks, The Velvets and guitar pop music all these years and decades down the line.
The Bluebells didn't want to come off stage, ripping into a cover of The Velvets What Goes On with Bobby on lead vocals. Then going into a jam of Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth. The Bluebells have never cared about being cool, they just want to create and play music and have fun. They did. It was a brilliant set.
That was it for me on the Friday, a flying visit in and out, so I didn't see headline act The Softies.
On Saturday, despite continued train issues, I braved public transport to enjoy a few beers. After getting off the underground at Kelvinbridge I treated myself to a Guinness outside The Doublet in the sunshine before heading round to the Debating Chambers.
A number of friends raved about opening band The Lovely Basement and I will definitely be checking up on them this week. Many people had been up until the small hours, staying on after The Bluebells to watch The Softies and then dancing to DJ's until 1am. There were after parties too!
Lung Leg were on at 6.55pm prompt (the sound engineer and tech team did incredibly well all weekend to keep the show running to time) and they absolutely blew me away.
Jane (McKeown) Egypt on bass and lead vocals locked in superbly with Paul Thomson (formerly of Franz Ferdinand) on drums to create some real funky and punky grooves. Annie Spandex created scratchy and catchy riffs on guitar and two new(ish) members on additional guitar and keys helped create energetic melodies, harmonies (at times 4 part) and hooks that were ridiculously catchy. Like playground rhymes backed by new wave / punk art riffs and grooves.
Many songs were under 2-minutes, others were well under 1-minute. Kung-Fu on the Internet (the first song to mention the Internet?!), Maid to Minx and the short, fun and bonkers Eek! were fast and fun.
Tony Molina was not a band I had heard of before Glas-goes pop. However I checked them out online and liked the sound of their guitars. So I was a little surprised when they took to the stage as a 4-piece of keyboards, 2 guitars (one a 12-string) and bass. Surprised, but delighted, they were superb. I will need to find out if they have an album that is stripped back like this.
Then it was time for the maestro - Gerard Love and his band. They blew me away, this was the tightest and hardest I have seen them play. That said, they started gently with the sublime Going Places. Then it was power and psychedelic pop perfection. Don't Look Back sounds better every time I hear it. Star Sign saw the normally chilled Tom Crossley on key/flute break away to dance manically on stage. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Muddy Rivers was stretched out beautifully at the end, while new songs keep me wondering when Gerry will release something. You can't rush a perfectionist though.
Ending with a sky scraping Ain't That Enough and a euphoric Sparky's Dream, Gerry and his band lay down a bit of a gauntlet for headliners Heavenly. I had to dash for my last train home, so I couldn't stay to see how they responded. It's safe to say that they had a lot of fans in the crowd.
Well done to all who organized and delivered Glas-goes Pop. The festival went on into the Sunday with a pub quiz hosted by Duglas T Stewart (won by friends Ruthie and Anne-Marie and their team - well done) and a closing party at Mono featuring The Cords.
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