Having been a Chvrches fan for a while this was shamefully the first time I had made it along to see them. Walking into the huge Hydro arena I found myself wishing slightly that I could go back in time to 2014 and see them play at the Barrowlands instead. However they proved me wrong and filled the arena with both sound and bodies. The crowd was very mixed, which proved the power of their synth-pop inspired music to appear on the radar to a wide range of demographics.
Anticipation built during the break between the last support (Lets eat grandma) and the start of Chvrches set as the elaborate lighting rig was revealed. As soon as the band took to the stage and burst into their first song "Get out," they looked buzzing to be playing to such a big audience on home turf. Midway through the set, Martin Docherty goes on to speak about remembering the days playing gigs when the band outnumbered the crowd and that he'd never forget that night playing to the 13,000 Hydro crowd. The set featured a mix of all 3 albums leaning more towards their most recent 2018 release "Love is dead." My personal highlight of the whole set was the performance of "Tether" from the debut album "The bones of what you believe," it is my favourite song from the album and the band managed to replicate the layers of the recorded version perfectly in the live setting. The addition of live drums to the set compared with videos I've seen online worked really well too, but maybe that's just a biased opinion from someone who isn't a fan of electronic percussion.
The set ended with a predictable encore considering the band left the stage before playing arguably their biggest hit "The mother we share." Soon enough though the band returned packing Buckfast as a pick me up to get them through the last 2 songs. The show was great but the only minor issue I had was the amount of chat between songs, mostly pointless, however I did learn the true meaning of "Chips and hame" so it wasn't a complete waste of stage time.
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