Young Fathers
o2 Academy
****
The first time I saw Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and Graham 'G' Hastings they were headlining one of the smaller tents at the late lamented Wickerman Festival and their tribal collective edge left me blethering about them being the most exciting breakthrough bands in Scotland.
Within months they had deservedly picked up the Mercury Prize gong.
Now in support of their third proper album Cocoa Sugar the Edinburgh threesome are playing their biggest venues to date and the big question is whether they would lose any of their enigmatic magic in this less intimate former cinema.
While Cocoa Sugar may have signalled a more accessible pop edge to their sometimes abstract hip hop sound shapes, their opening including a rampantly rabid Queen Is Dead put paid to any thoughts of a sell out.
The only sell out was in the room with 2500 seemingly screaming at the very thought, at one point, of G actually uttering something, anything.
When he did the Edinburgh lad said: "Hello Glasgow. Always the best town in the world every f...ing time." And with no hint of saracasm.
A friend of Bankole who was watching them for the first time reckoned his old mucker was the lead singer, but actually one of the refreshing things about the trio is how there is no single focus, and that there is a real togetherness spirit, with interchangable raps, Jacko soul licks and breast beating collective crooning.
Bankole wins the prize for the craziest of frenzied dancing as they blend the best of their new songs from a rampant In My View to a euphoric Border Girl with the cream of the less new including a preciously meditative I Heard.
What lets them down is outwith their control. The Academy is notorious for squishy sound, and it does not do the band any favours from where I am, as the most subtle melodic nuances in their most experimental passages in songs like Get Up get lost.
Where it didn't matter on classics such as the earworm organ loop genius of Rain or Shine and the transcendent warped gospel of Low they bring the house down.
In the end seeing a packed medium sized venue whooping to something other than by-numbers pop gives us hope that challenging, boundary-pushing bands can indeed prosper.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article