Gut Reactions (post-gig memories and other trips): A Thousand Horses, St Lukes, Glasgow. Wednesday July 30th, 2025

Six of us headed into Glasgow to see These Wicked Rivers. They weren't the headliners, and it did feel odd justifying the expense of seeing them play as a support act, having already caught them twice this year, but they are damn good.

As they were again tonight. They played a tight setlist on a cramped stage and sounded great.

I'd never heard of headliners, A Thousand Horses. I'd listened to their album and figured the night would be about line dancing, cowboy hats and slide guitars. Boy, was I wrong! For the first two numbers, they sounded more like Oasis than Nashville. The singer's posture at the mic wasn't as pronounced as Liam Gallagher's, but there's definitely an influence. Only when the guitarist brought out his slide did it feel like we were veering into country mode.

They are a good band, but tonight they got strangled by the sound in the venue. Everything was too loud. Rather than turning down the bass and drums, they turned up the vocals and the guitar till it produced feedback. I wasn't the only one holding my ears during some of the songs. Which is a shame because they rocked.

I thought I was dreaming when they started playing the opening bars to Champagne Supernova, then actually sang it. I hadn't been wrong about the Oasis influence after all. The singer was even dancing like Liam, bopping across the stage to the beat. The only thing missing was the parka. I liked the singer. He had a commanding presence, a likeable charm, with a Brad Pitt vibe about him. Shame I couldn't hear his vocals clearly.

They didn't play a long set, just under an hour and a half, but they did spend lots of time afterwards meeting the fans, as did These Wicked Rivers.

Crowdwise, two individuals drew my attention (I won't go into Scott's sniggers and chattiness, because he can't always help it). The first was a young lad in a baseball cap near the front. He liked to raise his arm and take videos, not of the entire song and not always pointing the camera at the band. Every time I saw his wrist appear, with more bracelets than hair, I wanted to take him aside and give him a lecture on how to shoot a video. He enjoyed himself, though.

The second irritation was a well-to-do couple who stole the space in front of us during the interval. They were in their fifties and were ruthless as f@ck. Evident from her enthusiasm towards the band, she wanted to be at the front but hadn't arrived early enough. That wasn't going to stop her, though. She had moves and didn't care whose view she blocked. We weren't her only victims. One man went to the bar, and the pair immediately claimed his space. His wife complained to him upon his return that her view was spoiled, but there was nothing he could do. The woman tried it on again, dancing down to the front, putting her arms around a couple at the barrier before those behind called her out and she reversed away again, holding her hands up in surrender, still dancing. Cheeky bitch!

Anyway, she didn't spoil my night. The venue's sound did that. It could have been so much better.

No setlists available at the time of writing.