Athlete, Oran Mor Tuesday 30th June

    As an extremely excited crowd pack Oran Mor and chant for Athlete to come out, it's not surprising that the band claim (and I was asked explicitly to state this is genuine...) that Glasgow ranks in both their top 1 and 2 spots to perform in.

  After a lengthy set-up and last minute sound-check, Athlete walk on stage to loud cheers and people already requesting 'El Salvador'’.  The band, spurred on by the enthusiastic welcome, launch straight into 'Superhuman Touch' - an upbeat song from their soon-to-be-released 4th album Black Swan.  The song sees a return to the Athlete of old, with a very catchy chorus and lots of poppy beats, and the crowd respond well.  After their departure into the outskirts of electronica in the last album Beyond the Neighbourhood - which failed to make a major impact - it seems Athlete have found their feet again (as far as the crowd are concerned anyways).  The band have stated that the ethos behind the new album is to ensure that all songs will generate a good connection between band and crowd when played live, and so far it seems to be working.

    They move quickly into 'You Got the Style', which reached number #37 in the UK singles chart in 2002, and this also generates a massive response from the crowd, with Joel leaving it to them to sing a large section of the song.  For a band whose successes seem to be more historic than current, Athlete certainly have a passionate and devoted following.  This is even more evident when you realise that they released tickets for the tour months prior to the announcement of the new album, and they were bought up immediately by eager fans.

    Afterwards lead singer Joel thanks the crowd and tells them 'We love playing in Glasgow…', which leads to even more clapping and whistling.  Some members of the crowd (who appear to have consumed copious amounts of alcohol / are on drugs) yell out a typical Weegie 'Mon yersel' Joel! El Salvador, El Salvador!'.  This is subsequently ignored, and the band begin ‘Shake Those Windows’ (again from their first album). Up till now, Athlete have remained fairly reserved on the compact stage, but they now take the opportunity to let-loose.  Funnily enough, this is one of the few songs that leave the crowd a bit restless - a few try to nod their heads along to the beat as Joel and Carey spin about the stage with their guitars, but the connection that Athlete hoped to create seems to be temporarily lost amidst a not particularly cohesive ‘rock-out’ section.

  

   They continue on with a variety of songs from each of their four albums, including the title song of the newest addition Black Swan, which, despite showing off Joel Pott’s smooth vocals, leaves the crowd feeling rather unsatisfied due mostly to it’s monotony and lack of any sort of crescendo.

  The band admit that they’re into more obscure music like Efterklang and the Flaming Lips, however this sound doesn’t overtly filter through into their own music.  Whilst some of their songs seem quite commercially pleasing – the sound falling somewhere between Coldplay and the Killers at times with the poppy-electro sound of the keyboards and catchy melodies; others seem to amble on without any notable peaks or troughs, and disappoint the listener by not building up to anything striking.

     The band say goodnight, leaving the crowd wanting more, and after a few minutes of foot-stomping and more requests of El Salvador they return to the stage.  They play another song from the first album, then El Salvador (finally) and lastly their most successful hit to date, Wires, which has everyone singing along.

   The band have often been classed as ‘middle-of-the-road’, ‘safe’ and ‘pretty’ - which may seem a damning critique - however regardless of how they’re perceived by some critics the fact remains that, nearly a decade after forming, they’re still going strong with an army of devoted followers.  Listening to the array of songs they’ve played you suddenly realise how many hits, and good hits at that, they once had.  The electronic sounds from 3rd album Beyond the Neighbourhood seemed to have been ‘lost in translation’ (as Steve, the drummer, put it), however they’ve got back to basics with 4th album Black Swan and created several ‘pop’ songs, combined with an electro edge, which are likely to be reasonably successful radio hits.

Review By Keira Macmillan

Read interview with Athlete!