Live Reviews


  Mummy Short Arms, Naked Strangers, Captain Majestic live at Pivo Pivo in Glasgow



mummy short arms on stage

Night creatures. That's what she says as she cuts limes. She cuts limes with what can only be described as dexterity. The kind of dexterity that suggests that forgetting her birthday might prove fatal. She says that I must write of the night creatures so duly I do.

In the basement of Pivo Pivo, the first creatures of the night and of the shadows are Captain Majestic. There are but two of them to make the drums do the drumming thing and the guitar do the soul searching thing. Blues rock, as you might surmise, is therefore their game but they seem just a bit too clean cut and well behaved to carry it off. The blonde in the pink dress probably disagrees with that judgement but she who cuts limes has those eyes of azure and superior combat experience.

I'm told they hail from Ullapool but that clearly did not make Naked Strangers hillbillies on the lam. Devoid of normal pretensions, they swung the axe of good musical taste towards the expanded head of indie rock and cleaved it into the bastard son of psychedelic rock and Big Country. A slow start to their set perhaps but once that steamroller got moving, all obstacles that were ahead of them was soon crushed.

Also left of centre were the headliners Mummy Short Arms. Their purpose was to promote the launch of their single "Changes" which is, of course, commendable and understandable but tonight they showed a curious restraint. Normally a band of deranged leadership balanced against the kind of solid musicality that your average Scottish band can only dream of, tonight Mummy Short Arms verged on the mellow as if unsure of their previously proven hitting power and their own rambling magnificence.
 
The night creatures clap. The night creatures sing along. The night creatures sparkle even in the dim red light. The night creatures ask if Noel Edmonds had anything to do with that which they have seen.  Why ask me? Ask the Girobabies or ask her for she has a knife and she knows what to do with it.



Reviewer:
Review Date: November 12 2011


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