The OVO Hydro, 10 December
For a few years either side of the millennium, Stereophonics were establishing themselves as a band who produced anthemic songs for their growing fanbase to share at festivals at home and abroad.
A quarter of a century on, the band dug deep into their recorded work, providing the music, and sometimes even the lyrics on the vast backdrop, for the sold-out audience to sing along to. They didn’t need much persuading.
You don’t have to be a die-hard fan to remember the words to these songs either. If you were even half active as a music lover in the late ninety’s early noughties, they are etched into our subconsciousness, eager to get out and show those around you that, like them, you’ve been following the band from the start of their career.
A tad difficult for a Glasgow audience to make that claim though when Kelly Jones recounts how it all started off as a twelve-year-old pushing a trailer to the local social club to practice and play gigs. A tender tale recounted as he sat on a stool with a little ukulele to play on.
Within the set list the band dropped in a couple of tracks from their most recent release Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait. That they fitted in so seamlessly confirmed that the band’s successful template is not to be tampered with.
Of course there were highlights within the ‘best of’ selection, Have a Nice Day, Maybe Tomorrow, Just Looking and A Thousand Trees evoked memories when they first bled into our speakers.
Geronimo was maybe a more surprising highlight with its raw power interspersed by Gavin Fitzjohn’s saxophone and Jamie Morrison’s drum solo.
None was as well received as closing number Dakota though. On the night, a song that the audience wished had several more verses and choruses.
But let’s not be greedy. A couple of hours of unbridled happiness to see the band on top form.
Support, Finn Forster
Hailing from Middlesbrough, Finn Forster is a rising singer-songwriter with his indie-folk sound set to real life stories.
While he played acoustic guitar throughout the set was illuminated by his band members, especially on lead guitar who furnished each song with raw energic riffs and delicate finger picking when required. Forster is a fine storyteller, every song explained away as something that has happened to him in the past as best exemplified in the song Pablo, a tribute to a college friend who returned to Iran at 21 and was unable to come back for almost six years.
He’s a man on the upward ladder, touring across the country and gradually building the fan base that will eventually take him onto the next few rungs. Another on the watchlist for 2026 and beyond.
