A live review

12th April 2018

o2 Academy Glasgow

Arriving almost on time and in an amazing stroke of luck, we caught most of (what may have been) their opening song ‘Wrecking Bar (Ra, Ra, Ra)’ which set the precedent for the evening of crowd pleasing, polished punk pop that was to follow.

Having missed the support act Dream Wife, all I can say is that I overheard a guy in the audience tell his mate they were ‘really good’.

What you can expect from the Vaccines live is… well, exactly what you expected. They were really tight sounding, songs sounded exactly as they did on the albums. The only indication they were not miming to a backing track was the incessant bouts of drummer tourettes between songs.

I had never even wondered or cared what the Vaccines looked like until recently finding out that the singer Justin Young looks like naughties ‘Hero’, Enrique Iglesias. I imagine he may have been a ‘hero’, or ‘teenage idol’ to the young female following that made up a large section of the audience, but Young’s front-man moves were lacklustre and contrived as the 50’s rock n roller he professes not to be.

Although the band were good I spent a lot of the night somewhat distracted by watching the crowd. From the balcony seating I watched with warm nostalgia as the gentle mosh rippled through the crowd downstairs, it reminded me of the days when I could actually be bothered actively participating at gigs rather than passively spectating (maybe that’s why I seem to have such a shit time).

Unfortunately spent most of my night behind a couple who seemed to be experiencing the whole night through the prism of their smartphones, while seemingly having the time of their lives. When one wasn’t filming the gig on their phone, they were watching their partner’s screen as they were filming. When neither were filming, the woman was trying to listen back to the audio quality of what she had just filmed. When she was at the toilet, he was on his phone, presumably toilet texting her. When she came back they took selfies in the dark. They spent an entire evening ignoring the band.

What to expect from the Vaccines is some sort of instagram ready audio-visual glossy burger and cocktail voucher; they are everything that is wrong with the world but also quite enjoyable.