Cardinal Black - The Garage Glasgow 11th October 2025

The stories in these finely-crafted songs throb with passion and emotion and are performed with skill, finesse and a tender touch. If they weren’t Welsh, you might describe their music as Americana, but with a dash of blues, rock and pop too, and everything all snugly wrapped up in a blanket of pure soul.

From the audience reaction to the opening song ‘Ride Home’, it’s clearly not just me that has had the album on repeat. The sold-out crowd were loud, encouraging and spot-on with the “woo-hoo-hoos”, as they would be with all the audience participation parts throughout the show. The band have been to this town before – always drawing a capacity crowd and each visit has been in an increasingly bigger venue. I’m sure they have arenas in their future eventually, probably with a horn section and a line of backing singers too, but tonight’s immersive experience in the intimacy of a 700-capacity venue felt like it really hit a very sweet spot.

Cardinal Black don’t do lights, flash bombs and gimmicks – they don’t need to, and anyway, it would detract from the music and set them apart from their audience. Comfortingly, Tom Hollister looks like your favourite hipster uncle with his flat cap, glasses, beard and what looks like a fast-food restaurant server’s shirt, but OMG that voice! He might be a little bit scuffed-up from the road but he really brings it from the bottom of his heart and you can feel it all the way to the back of the hall. There’s a beautiful moment near the end of ‘Falling’ where the band briefly pauses as Tom sings the “I keep waiting for the better day” line with extra feeling and it is absolutely spell-binding. As Ted said to Morgan Freeman in ‘Ted 2’; “I think I want to sleep on a bed made of your voice”.

The first four tracks are all from ‘Midnight at The Valencia’ and it is on ‘Holding my Breath’ where Chris Buck really opens up for the first time with an extended solo. As always, it is song-focused and as much about tone, touch and feel as it is technically proficient and his work carries as much flavour and emotion as his vocalist pal.

Unsurprisingly, the band are becoming appreciated across America and have been putting in the hard work and long hours on the road over there. But, as someone on the telly once said; “fame costs”, and the song ‘Adeline’ eloquently and passionately describes the pain of being away from your family. Named for Tom’s daughter, this song gives off serious ‘Wichita Lineman’ vibes and strengthens the bond and understanding between the band and those who are just pleased that the musicians have made the effort to come to their town to play for them.

Irish singer-songwriter Nathan O’Regan made a lot of friends in his support slot, and he popped up mid-set to join the headliners and sing parts of ‘Morning Light’. The laid-back hook in the song is “let’s just get drunk and talk until the morning light” and with the easy interaction between the individual band members, at times it feels like it actually is midnight at The Valencia and they’re just mates having a drink and a laugh, while sharing some songs and secrets and talking about their feelings. And best of all, us lucky folks in the audience get to feel like we’re right there in the room with them enjoying a shared intimate moment.

After that, they played ‘Your Spark (Blows Me to Pieces)’ – my personal highlight from my new favourite album. On a night of sustained excellence, the most sublime wee bit of the evening came during this song. As Chris came to the end of his second solo – a Kossoffian masterclass of barely controlled emotion – the music majestically swells up again, and Tom came back in, just a touch higher than before, reprising the “I can’t make it if you don’t make it” refrain, and in that micro-moment it is absolutely f*cking perfect. They followed that up with their first great song ‘Tell Me How It Feels’ and it just can’t get much better than that.

Buck, Hollister and drummer Adam Roberts have been together since they were kids and they definitely seem to enjoy any easy “matey” banter. Tom cheerfully took the piss out of Chris about his on-stage prat fall in Belfast the night before and “the 27th best funk-pop solo of all time” but there are tender moments too. Prior to the encore, Chris opened up movingly and at-length about the death of his father, and explained how he had sketched out just a few words and chord ideas for a song about his old man. Band lyricist Tom took his mate’s idea and intuitively created exactly the right melody and words to articulate what he knew his pal wanted to express. The fantastic ‘Push / Pull’ was the result and you could hear a pin drop while they played it.

A remarkable show came to an end with a benedictory ‘Tied Up in Blue’ and the audience went out into the night with a warm, fuzzy feeling and the knowledge that they had been part of something very special indeed.

On a big night for the band, they totally slayed everyone with a fantastic killer performance. In Cluedo terms, the perpetrator was Cardinal Black: in the Garage; with songs that rip your f*cking heart out.