Is all that is beautiful to be found behind a bar? That is surely one of the great philosophical questions of our time and it is one that we all should ponder upon whilst we partake of a beer or three. Anyway, to give you the context, this is the basement bar that is Pivo Pivo and the other reason for being here tonight is the music with How Garbo Died, Audiodeluxe and IT Girl sequentially occupying the stage.
Without further ado, said stage fills almost to capacity with the many members of IT Girl. Apparently new to live performance, they nonetheless acquitted themselves well as they launched a salvo of songs seemingly borne of a love of bands borne of Factory Records way back in the eighties. With near relentless, drum machine powered rhythms, angular guitars and manic vocals on their side, they definitely made their mark.
Being fair to Audiodeluxe, it isn’t easy to follow a much bigger band and they struggled somewhat to make an impression. Having said that and bearing in mind that there were only two of them, it would have still been way too easy to make comparisons between them and karaoke singers that you might find in pubs in the east end of Glasgow.
And now on to the main event, as it were. Taking no prisoners tonight were How Garbo Died who - after having consumed over 100 hours of hardcore pornography if their lyrics were to be proven true - sledgehammered an unsuspecting audience with a jaw dropping set that positively reeked of diffidence and contempt. Front man Kevin Gilday took his words of self loathing out into the audience and ranted like a man possessed by the spirits of Aidan Moffat and Bertolt Brecht whilst angry guitars and crude loops provided the tortured soundtrack. An acquired taste, for sure, but in this shitty city, they deserve to be legend.
Upstairs, the streets may be decorated with vomit and discarded white stilettos but in that basement there was both beauty and madness.