TRNSMT Festival, O My!
- Weekes
- Jul 11, 2017
- 2 min read
We arrived in chilly Glasgow early Friday afternoon and made our way to the festival grounds under ominously gray skies. Boasting a rather formidable frontwoman (she had a great Janis Joplin-y energy), the first act we stumbled upon on one of the smaller stages was called Bang Bang Romeo. Good name!
Next up on the main stage was mynewfavouriteband, London Grammar. We were able to get really close, but sadly I failed to take any pictures of the band. They were awesome. Hannah Reid's vocals sounded amazing, and I was very pleased that they played 'Hell to the Liars'--a track off their new album that I have been hitting pretty hard this past week. During 'Big Picture' the clouds finally parted and the stage was bathed in sunlight.
You can expect August's mix tape to feature London Grammar pretty heavily.
Belle & Sebastian's set felt too short and sweet, but they delivered and it was fun to see them in their hometown. 'Judy and the Dream of Horses' was an obvious highlight, and I was happy they played 2 of the newer tracks included on July's mix tape. At one point, Murdoch pulled a bunch of people on stage to dance, and there was this one ridiculous woman who stood up there texting (live tweeting? or what? what are you doing?) the entire time! Get off your phones, people!
We managed to get pretty close again for Radiohead by foregoing food consumption and staying put. Sadly, it was incredibly tight and this was my view for the first half:
Luckily the sound was great and very well-mixed, so I just closed my eyes and let it fall around me. And B lifted me up a few times so I could see that they were really and truly there. Things shifted (I might have shoved a careening drunk woman who was accosting me) and I had a little more space to enjoy the second half. The setlist was insane, so I have included it in its entirety here and below.
Really pretty much every song was a highlight. 'Lucky' is one of my all-time favourites of the older tracks and has one of the most exciting builds ever ('it's gonna be a GLORIOUS DAY!'). 'There, There', 'Reckoner', 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi', 'Idioteque', all wonderful. '2+2=5' was incredibly thrilling live, being an excellent song for jumping up and down (the careening drunk woman was ill-advisedly sitting on the ground at this point). Then the encore... 'Paranoid Android', 'Fake Plastic Trees', 'Nude' (!!!!!), 'The Bends', and finally 'Karma Police'. Unbelievable.
The crowd continued to repeat, 'For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself...' for several minutes after the band left the stage.
It was magic.
I returned to London feeling inspired but also a bit hopeless, wishing I had some bandmates and wasn't going it alone.
xWG //
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