Live Reviews


  The Miss's, Reptile House, Pauline Russell live at the 13th Note in Glasgow



Best foot forward. March with a sense of purpose. March like you are going to invade a neighbouring country. March into a vegetarian venue like the 13th Note and demand harmonies. Outside, some vagabond nursing a cigarette makes the scurrilous suggestion that there is no Guinness in the downstairs bar. Time to quickly dispatch him with the lethal reviewer's pen for both Guinness and harmonies are to be found here tonight. My spider senses tell me so.

Music maestro! The first act was Pauline Russell. She was but one girl and an acoustic guitar so no harmonies there. It's a pretty fair guess given the choice of covers in her short set that she's new to the game but she had a sweet voice and there was nothing that a bit more experience wouldn't sort out.

Then the harmonies arrived. A full complement of The Miss's took to the stage. That's four, by the way. To the basic backing of an acoustic guitar and percussion, they used their trademark understated harmonies in a brave attempt to overcome the audience chatter and with "Mr Muscle" they succeeded. Nicely nice, as they say.

Another act new to the Glasgow music scene rounded things off for the night. Reptile House strolled nervously through their first few songs but then found their feet and, as their confidence grew, suddenly brought focus and authority to their bluesy rock sound with Patrick Monagahn's vocals twisting his voice into some devilish cross between Liam O'Maonlai and Tom Waits. "March Into the City" was the song that did it for me. Kind of appropriate, that.

Looking at my watch, I noticed that it was kebab time. Come to think of it, it's always kebab time.



Reviewer:
Review Date: April 2 2010


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