Review: Those Damn Crows – The Garage, Glasgow

For Bridgend’s famous sons Those Damn Crows, it’s a case of all roads leading southwest to the last date on their ‘Inhale/Exhale’ tour: a headline appearance at the brand-new Swansea Arena. To say that the band’s first Arena headline appearance will be an emotional evening is like saying that the sun rises in the morning, and sets in the evening. There will not be a dry eye in the house once the houselights dim and the five-piece take to the stage. By the time this happens, Those Damn Crows will have laid waste to six cities up and down the UK and played to packed-out venues, several of which were upgraded due to demand. Tonight it is the turn of Glasgow to play host to the Crowfamily, or was it actually Swansea?

The aforementioned third album ‘Inhale/Exhale’ is set to be the Crows’ highest chart placing when the final charts are announced this coming Friday, and the midweek charts make for splendid viewing as the Crows line-up alongside Pink in the top 3. Understandable then that the setlist is made up of a great deal of ‘Inhale/Exhale’ and unlike a lot of times when a band says “Here’s a new one”, the new material aired is met with roars of approval.

After the lights dim and make what is already a dark venue, even more darker, the band appears to huge roars of delight and batter into a quick one-two of new material in the shape of ‘Fill The Void’, and ‘Wake Up (Sleepwalker)’. Vocalist Shane Greenhall is beaming from ear to ear as he sets out to make eye contact with everyone that he can in the darkened room (have we mentioned already that The Garage is kind of dark? – stick big light on, yeah), and the irony of how TDC are performing to a jam-packed crowd in a venue where they have opened for other acts who couldn’t draw a crowd like this, is not lost. As the crowd launches into the local chant of “Here we, here we, here we fucking go” Shane quips “Fuck, that’s us, we’ve peaked!” and later on when he asks “Having a good time, Swansea?” before correcting himself by saying “It’s not fucking Swansea, it’s Scotland!” the hugely-likeable vocalist has started something which will now forever be referred to as “The Glasgow/Swansea Incident”. He does however get it right when he introduces guitarist Ian “Shiner” Thomas as “The coolest dude in the band”.

When the dust has settled from the opening ten minutes or so, the band turns to the first two studio albums for moments such as ‘Sick Of Me’, ‘Kingdom Of Dust’, ‘Sin On Skin’ (with the crowd called into action so many times from Greenhall on the intro, and throughout from bassist Lloyd Wood on a track that drummer Ronnie Huxford totally owns), and the sublime ‘Blink Of An Eye’ which remains a lump-in-the-throat moment that has the crowd bellowing out the chorus as loud as they can in honour of those sadly no longer still with us. ‘Who Did It’ is still a firm favourite, and once the opening bars to ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Ain’t Dead!’ begin, the crowd knows what is coming next. Shane Greenhall loves to climb. He also loves (consciously or not) to give his bandmates and the crowd a bit of a heart-in-mouth moment when he embarks on one of his many Bridgend Spiderman moments. And tonight is no exception. An industrial-looking girder runs the length of the balcony and Shane has used it before on numerous occasions in the past, but this time the venue has thwarted him by placing a security guard a few feet along the balcony and the poor guy (only young) has been tasked with stopping Shane in his tracks. To be honest, given the amount of dust and dirt on the ledge, Shane would probably have needed a tetanus shot had he completed his mission, so thankfully after a few feet, he gives in and climbs back over the balcony and gives the security guard a hug for looking after him. He then continues to gee up the crowd with a call and response that lasts the length of the balcony, down the stairs, and back through the heaving throng which a few minutes ago was wondering if Shane was going to land on them or not.

Once he’s back on stage, the band launches into a romp through thirty minutes or so of new material that highlights the growth in the band and just how well-suited The Crows are to a North American audience. With its sharp, staccato guitar intro from the superb duo of Shiner and David Winchurch, ‘Takedown’ (“Thank you Swansea…just because it feels like home!”) is just begging to be played on Modern Rock Radio in America, and after witnessing this one and ‘Man On Fire’, it is easy to imagine Those Damn Crows opening for an act such as Shinedown across the pond. Ditto ‘This Time I’m Ready’ which sees Shane strapping on a guitar and joining the impressive frontline of guitarists; this mid-tempo beauty has all the hallmarks of a massive crossover hit Stateside, and that turn of pace after three minutes is all the more thrilling and beefier when witnessed in a live setting. Ending on an emotional ‘See You Again’, there is nothing left for the band to do but soak up the applause from the Crowfamily and double-check the tour itinerary to be sure that they are not in Swansea after all.