Coming back to Sunderland for the first time in almost a decade, indie art-rockers Glasvegas will raise the roof with a post-pandemic gig decided specifically as an ideal location to warm them up for the festival season. Damian Robinson caught up with lead guitarist Rab Allan to find out more about the gig and their desire to revisit Sunderland.
Is this the official album launch tour given that you haven’t properly been able to tour ‘Godspeed’?
Yeah, I guess it is, but who really knows what’s going on with albums and tours and trying to schedule gigs around albums at the minute? The Sunderland gig is more of a one-off gig we wanted to do before we play some festivals.
And you chose to play Sunderland specifically as a warm-up show?
Yeah. We wanted to go somewhere where we’d played before, really enjoyed it, and knew the crowd would be really up for having a good time. It’s the perfect place for us to go and feel really at home.
It’s about a decade since you last played Sunderland, I believe…
Yeah, it was a mad gig, but mad in a good way. I remember playing and I had quite large heels on my shoes so I was too tall for the stage. That was just one of the many mad moments of the evening.
So you’ll need to give some serious thought to your shoe choice this time?
Always.
What kind of show can we expect?
I’m of the opinion that the places we play where we haven’t been in ages we should really do a best-of set and throw in some new pieces as well. I try to look at shows from the perspective of being a music fan myself and I think that if it’s been a while since a band has come to my home city, I want to hear the more popular pieces. We did a live stream a few months back where we played a lot more of the newer stuff so that’s helped us feel like we can do a best-of on these shows.
How’s the crowd changed since you started?
It’s really interesting. We did a ten-year anniversary tour in 2018 and there were loads of people there with their kids so we’ve now got generations of families at our shows. That’s really moving to see and music can be so powerful in those sorts of moments.
Glasvegas play Independent in Sunderland on Saturday 28th August. Tickets, priced at £20.00 in advance, are available from independentsunderland.com.
