Hellogoodbye live – Glasgow
DISCLAIMER: I am aware that me liking Hellogoodbye is completely out of character and that if I was a character in a novel or a movie it would not be allowed. But this is life, mates, and I love them.For the Hellogoodbye friends and fans: I have known them since they were a duo writing songs in Forrest’s bedroom, I remember “a brand new song called Hellogoodbye Rap”, and I do consider Z!A!V!D! a bit over-produced, with guitars bass and drums too low and vocals too filtered. But I like it, OK? OK.
HGB were supposed to be playing at the King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut, where every big British band in the last 25 years have played before they made the grade. If you Google for “King Tut’s” and “Things to do in Scotland” you’ll find confirmation for this, if you don’t believe me. But they already outgrew it, which is good! So the gig is moved to QMU, the Queen Margaret Union, in the University area. I get there around five and, thanks to my extra-special connection (love you, Cathi!), I call Duncan, defined (not by himself) “the hardest-working man in the business since James Brown died” and probably the youngest tour manager in the world (he’s 22), and in 5 minutes this guy picks me up and hands me an AAA pass. Wow. And walks me to the changing rooms. Chris, who could very well play the part of “the young honest son of the boss” in a mafia movie, is standing in front of a door cradling a laptop. I say hi, he says hi, Duncan opens the door, Forrest and Marcus are trying to write an article that should explain how to do just anything they know how to do well. A bit obscure. They are enjoying the UK, have had only good gigs, although it is cold and damp “but Glasgow is OK” (it has probably been the first dry day in two months, but anyway). Chris, in the meantime, loses a personal battle against an avocado, not ripe enough to be edible: apparently that’s the way British supermarkets treat their fruits; they buy them very early, so when you purchase some you need to get acquainted with them, to grow up with them, to become their friend so that they’ll allow you to eat them. Jesse comes in from having taken a shower (he is dressed, girls, don’t faint), I say hi, he says hi, he invites me out for a cigarette. I don’t smoke, I go out for a chat. We end up talking for nearly two hours, of course starting from the band but then we move on to music in general and then politics, travelling, cultures, studying, families, “what is home” and so on. Yes, Cat, he DOES say (spontaneously) that he loves his mom, “if only we could talk of something else than the band when I’m on holiday”. So, a very interesting chat and a very interesting person! Great to have met him. Time to go downstairs to hear the warm-up acts. Just because I’m probably the oldest guy in there, I play the youngster, die-hard fan and manage to squeeze in the thick of the crowd. Not like the other time, on the margins of the crowd: I’m in front of the keyboards, two rows deep. Yay. Haven’t done it since Iron Maiden in Trieste in the Virtual XI tour, early ’90s. Feels good.
First band up, it’s Houston Calls. They are good, very funny, people clap their hands in the right places and all. I’ll buy their CD at the end of the show. Many of their jokes are focused on the Scots being heavy drinkers and the fact that that’s “good in their books”. Irrelevant now, but we’ll go back to the issue later.
Second band, I don’t like them as much as I liked Houston Calls but they are good indeed. By the time they start the venue is nearly full. 900 people, maybe a bit less as the “upstairs terrace” is not exploding but there are plenty of people there as well. Good. More beer jokes from the lead vocalist, again irrelevant at the moment but. Good is the lead vocalist’s solo spot, only vocals and guitars. There are several guys there specifically for them.
Usual break, darkness falls, a torch walks through the stage, it’s Marcus. HGB take their places (Jesse on guitar, Forrest with his hands free at the moment) and they open with “All of Your Love”. The guys roar and start jumping, and won’t stop. Jesse is thrown a yellow flag with a lion on, his face proves he hasn’t got a clue of what it represents but hangs it on an amplifier. Good move mate, that was the Scottish Rampant, the haraldic symbol of the country. “Baby It’s Fact” follows, then “All Time Lows”, and here the delirium starts! Everyone knows all the words by heart, so much that Forrest will conclude that – as the song had been available for download in a demo version for a while – most people suffer of his loathed “demo-itis”. He calls the crowd “stealers”, everyone laughs, no one boo’s, Forrest’s sense of humour is coming through. Which is cool. Another joke is about the thing that the Brits and the Scots in particular have with glow sticks. And at this point he is thrown several, and plays with them. Funny. We also get “Bonnie Taylor Shakedown 2K4″, “Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn” and, introduced by an even bigger roar, “Dear Jamie” and the single, “Here in Your Arms”. They walk out, wait to be called back, here’s Forrest. On his own with his guitar. Little chat with the crowd (he had already been joking about the fact that basically no one in the English speaking world can understand the Glaswegian accent), then… disaster occurs. Oh, yeah. Someone throws some liquid at him. Mind, water had already been thrown around, especially with the other bands. Uneasy silence from Forrest. Wipes his nerdish glasses. “This is beer!”, exclaims. “I hate beer”. He is not boo’d until his ears bleed – in beer land! This is love, Forrest. The guys love you. Still. He starts “Oh This Is Love”, plays it all, then the rest of the band enters the stage. Forrest signals them to leave, he apparently doesn’t want to play the band finale of the song. The message somehow doesn’t go through, they play it, then leave. Choirs of “Touchdown Turnaround” start, but it is over. I am told that Forrest was seriously pissed off from the beer-throwing episode. Some of the kids actually disapprove the attitude, I hear the word “primadonna” a couple of times. But it came from people who clearly didn’t care much about the music, they mostly wanted to jump around, push and shove. People who clearly never read Forrest’s blogs or whatever, who don’t know the person he is.
I manage to go thank them, Forrest confirms he is indeed pissed off. Mate, that was one person, I hope you won’t hold a grudge against the Glasgow audience for that episode! So he signs my CD and scutters away for a shower. I have a final word and a picture with the other three guys, they are OK, it was a good gig only spoiled by the beer thing. They played amazingly, although it looked like they weren’t having as much fun as they did the other time at the Barrowlands. Not that there was any gloom, mind, it looked just a bit less natural. Which is fair enough, it’s not as if they were high school guys playing at the church festival. The songs were executed perfectly, and I’m pretty curious about that instrument that Forrest had on the side of his microphone, looked like a plastic bar giving out guitar-like sounds. Loved the day. Thank you everybody, and sorry, Forrest (no, it wasn’t me).
