1919, Twisted Nerve & Gothzilla - Audio, Glasgow 3rd May 2024

There was one surprise at the off, a gig in Glasgow actually opened right on time!

Of the three bands tonight, I have only seen the opening band before, Scottish Gothic Rock Duo, Gothzilla. I have been a fan for many years and always try to catch them when they play Glasgow. Tonight they are on stage rather quickly, so not everyone is in for their set. They played a lot of my personal favourites like 'Tightwire' their last single "It Is What It Is' and a song I discovered many years ago 'Today Is A Good Day To Die' with one of the most poignant lines I have ever heard in a song "With an arm full of scars to remind me I'm still alive". I know many people who can testify to this. This was the penultimate song of the set, the final song had everyone singing along at the top of their voices, The Neil Young masterpiece 'Rockin In The Free World'. Frontman Tim then invited everyone over to the merch table stating that he'd be over soon to sign merch and to chat with anyone who wanted to go over.

Next up are another Scottish band, from Edinburgh, Twisted Nerve. With the circles I move in, I am really surprised that I have never come across them before. I was supposed to shoot them a few weeks ago but life got in the way, however, I am delighted that this time we have finally crossed paths, they describe themselves as Post Punk Goths. It would be too easy to mention all the older bands that Twisted Nerve could fit in with these days, but they DID fit in with them back in the late 1970s and early 80's.

Doing some research on the band, finding out the flamboyant frontman Craig, was part of the London Batcave scene.

The band had nine tracks on their setlist, again not knowing the band, I'm not sure what is new and what is old, but I do know that with their final song of the set, they are pretty miserable with their time. Andy Warhol and Sheep On Drugs offered "Fifteen minutes of fame" Twisted Nerve only offer FIVE! The only disappointment was the band didn't have any of their music available at their merch table, or maybe I was just too late. 

Our headliners 1919, were formed in Bradford in 1980, another Post Punk/Goth Rock band, again like Twisted Nerve, I really don't know how I missed out on this band, even though I spoke regularly for a short time with their founder and guitarist Mark Tighe on social media, in the months before his passing. I must have heard the band before because they were regularly on The John Peel Show on Radio 1, I listened to his show regularly. Some of the songs from the bands set did sound familiar, but would not have been known who the band were before tonight. Songs 'Tear Down The Walls', 'Repulsion', 'After The Fall' and 'Cry Wolf' had that familiarity, so it's good to actually put a band name to songs I recognised bits of.

Vocalist Rio, who joined the band when they reformed in 2014, really knows how to play when a camera is pointed in his direction, a bit like The Cure's Robert Smith in the early days, he can look at the camera without actually looking at the camera! He even climbed onto the venues bar, paraded up and down for a few lines then jumped back onto the stage. They are another band sticking with the modern trend of not leaving the stage and coming back on for the encore. Rio did tell us "this is where we'd normally go off, but we're not going to, so we'll just play on" and play on they did, and ended their set with the incredible 'Alien'.

As I've said before, If you don't know any of the bands mentioned here, please give them a listen to, you might even enjoy.

See you at the barrier!