Legendary DJ Steve Lamacq has paid tribute to the Scottish bands who have changed the face of British indie music. The Radio 6 Music veteran is fronting Independent Venue Week, whose Scottish leg kicks off in Glasgow on Monday.
The Daily Record challenged Steve to name his five best ever Scottish indie gigs – and the veteran of possibly more live shows than other other person in the UK has duly delivered. Steve has also urged Scots to get stuck in as a host of bands big and small, hit independent venues across the country.
He has rammed home the message that every superstar band starts off as a small act in a local venue – and Scotland has punched massively above its weight for decades. The legendary DJ said: “You will never see a band at its most exciting, other than these are very early gigs at smaller venues - so people should get along."
He added: “It’s at that point, where the hunger is overflowing and they’re still quite raw and formulating who they are. It’s all brand new at that point and you just never you never know when you will catch that gig that people are talking about 20 years later.”
Steve also paid homage to Scottish guitar bands who changed the face of UK indie music - and the audiences driving them. He added: “I think Glasgow particularly has always been one of the major powerhouses in British guitar music, especially through the through the year from the late 80s, early 90s, producing Primal Scream then Teenage Fanclub and loads of others.
"You get the impression that Glasgow is almost like the West Coast of America. Post Britpop, that stuff was the most interesting thing happening really at the end of the 90s when bands like Mogwai and Belle and Sebastian and Arab Strap were, I suppose, at the front of a sort of counterculture.
Do any legendary Scottish gigs stand out in your mind? Share your story in the comments.
“To see this vibrant music in its natural habitat and to talk to people about the music is important – and that’s why I love coming to Scotland. “Up here you have people who really know how to enjoy the gig. But also you have amazing connoisseurs of music.
“And people are really schooled and well versed and knowledgeable about music and really get insight into the art of it. Some great atmospheric music has come out of Scotland, I think. And I love the poetry of some of the Scottish bands. Lyrically they have a have a twist that you don’t find anywhere else.”
Steve will be watching the intimate gig by revived 90s indie kings Suede at Stereo in Glasgow on February 3. He added: “I think catching Suede at this moment in time brings them right back around to where they were at the start, and I think it’ll really suit being in a small venue. think it’s going to be off the scale that gig to be honest.”
Steve's top five Scots gigs (in no particular order)
1. Travis - Barrowlands, Glasgow, March 1999
Travis were just arriving as a massive band. So, number one, they got them on the first Evening Session tour for Radio One with Catatonia, who were also exploding onto the scene.
At that point we all knew Britpop had pretty much collapsed and these two were just about to break in the same venue in front of a Glasgow audience. And to finish with Travis, it was the first time you really saw just how big some of their tracks were.
2. Embrace - King Tuts, Glasgow, June 1998
I love being somewhere which is obviously a moment in time and seeing Embrace at King Tut’s in Glasgow was one. They were already too big for King Tut’s and I think it was the week their first album came out, and it was absolutely rammed.
There are points where you’ll get a shiver because you reacting to what’s going on around you in the audience. The whole audience was singing the songs back to Embrace. I doubt they’ll ever played many more emotional gigs even from that from that point.
3. Idlewild - The North Star Centre, Shetland, May 2002
“We were chatting away with their representatives about a gig for Radio 1 and they had this idea to do a gig in Shetland. People turned up who were established Idlewild fans, some people had maybe heard a few songs and some had heard none.
"Some others just turned up because there was something on. It was a great gig and there’s there’s even bootlegs of it on on the internet that you can get.”
4. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Edinburgh Liquid Rooms, Feb 2006
“There was that moment where America started producing all these slightly weird, off-kilter bands, maybe as the antidote to some of the big groups that had come from state support, mainstream indie bands like The Strokes and stuff. But this Clap Your Hands Say Yeah turned up to the Liquid Room and the audience was obviously the more discerning type.
“I just remember watching the audience and noting that, slowly, song by song, they got into a group until there one sort of mass of people just moving almost almost to the point where they couldn't control themselves. Even in London they’d have been stood there with their arms folded - but everybody in the room in Edinburgh got into it with the clapping and dancing. Unforgettable.”
5. Ride - Barrowlands, Glasgow, March 2017
“This was for the 6 Music Festival and it was a special gig for me because I wrote the first ever article on Ride in the music press back in 1990. They were still kids, really, and I followed them all through the first incarnation, as they tried to work out what kind of band they were.
“Watching Ride in Glasgow, reborn, with smiles on their faces and really enjoying it was a joy. I introduced them then ducked into one side of the audience. And they were playing great and then I look to my right hand side, and I was standing next to Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai.
"And then I looked at my left hand side, and I was stood next to Alan McGee, who famously discovered Oasis in Glasgow.vAnd we shared a moment - all worshipping at the altar of the reborn Ride.”
- Steve Lamacq will be celebrating Independent Venue Week on BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Sounds from Monday 30th January - Friday 3rd February, 4pm-7pm. https://independentvenueweek.com/uk/
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