American pop-rock outfit Against The Current returned to Scotland to play in front of a raucous sold out crowd at The Garage in Glasgow.
It was their third headline show in Glasgow in as many years, but it was their first show in the country since releasing their debut album In Our Bones earlier this year, and the crowd didn’t have to wait long before hearing some of their new favourites, as the opening songs were two high octane tracks from it – ‘Runaways’ and ‘Forget Me Now’.
The energy didn’t drop as they settled into some older favourites either, with lead singer Chrissy Costanza charging back and forth across the stage for a couple of songs from their Gravity EP. And lead single from In Our Bones ‘Running With the Wild Things’ – a song nominated for Kerrang’s song of the year – combined this energy with rebellious lyrics in a winning combination.
The trio have been playing together for five years, rising from exclusively performing covers on YouTube to having a slot at this year’s Download festival. In keeping with their rise to prominence, they still tend to play a cover at live shows today, and in Glasgow it wouldn’t have been out of place on the Lemmy Stage. Their rendition of ‘Teenagers’, originally by My Chemical Romance, was a surprise, but a very welcome one at that.
That was followed fairly swiftly by a short acoustic section, and it was here the camaraderie between the band members really started shining through. Costanza was entertaining the whole night on the mic between songs, but one particular exchange during this time led to her and drummer Will Ferri throwing all of Daniel Gow’s guitar picks into the crowd purely to spite him.
The acoustic portion of the evening also allowed Costanza to show off the full power and range of her voice. Especially during their reworked version of old single ‘Infinity’, Costanza produced a flawless vocal. This was then followed up by the subtle title track from the album.
Fans were given some insight to the album as Costanza revealed that single ‘Wasteland’ was actually written and recorded months after they had initially believed the recording process for In Our Bones had been completed. She said they were almost surprised to see it on the album, but it was clearly a good decision to include it because it was one of the highlights of the night with its atmospheric build.
Against The Current had to adapt slightly for the opening song of their encore, ‘Dreaming Alone’, which was recorded as a duet but was sung solely by Costanza live. Rounding out the night with another classic ‘Gravity’, they definitely sent the fans home happy and will have won over anyone in the crowd who were previously undecided.
They are a hybrid style with elements of rock, pop and punk, enough of the first that they can play shows like Download festival but enough of the latter that they can still get mainstream airplay. There is so much potential with Against The Current, and if they keep impressing at live shows like they impressed me on Thursday the sky is the limit for them.
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