Much like the city’s subway Parquet Courts have circled back to Glasgow to kick off their European tour for new album Sunbathing Animals, having played the last date of their previous tour there on Hallowe’en 2013.

Playing for an hour straight, with no encore, the newer songs are predictably a little less well known by the crowd, which spends the first half of the show largely static but by the time we’re graced by fiery renditions of the likes of ‘Light Up Gold’ there’s a serious amount of pogoing and general pit mayhem at the front of the stage. Oddly, despite having paid good money to get in and probably shelling out the eye watering £4.50 for a pint, one crowd member feels the need to heckle bassist Sean Yeaton at one point by telling him to shut up in no uncertain terms. By the end of that encounter though it’s band & 99% of fans 1, dickhead nil.

Parquet Courts suffer a bit from less than clear final vocals for the bulk of their set but musically there are no flaws in 60 minutes packed with the maximum amount of songs and the bare minimum of chat, other than that mention of the circular nature of their kicking things off here, a mention of the summer solstice and a possible dig at the timing of the show by way of mentioning that it’ll still be daylight at the end of it, something that anyone travelling from outside Glasgow by public transport could be quite happy for, given the venue’s distance from the city centre. They were great tonight and no doubt will only improve on that as the tour progresses.

Tonight’s only support act were newcomers Ultimate Painting, playing their first ever show. Not that you’d have known without being told as they’re a tight unit that has clearly spent a lot of time playing together and working on their songs, one of which may have been called ‘Freak Beard’ (that muddy vocal issue struck them too). With a sound taking in elements of The Velvet Underground, The Byrds and Ride theirs was a good performance, let down only by the fact that some of their songs are a tad on the plodding side. Their livelier numbers are though cracking songs and exhibit enough variety that by rights should see them go from strength to strength through the coming months and bring them to the stage as headliners in the not too distant future, should their schedules for Veronica Falls & Mazes allow.

The second of our featured artists discovered via Reverbnation are Pittsburgh quartet The Show, who've been plying their trade for the better part of the last seven years and released their debut album Here’s To Your Jigsaw in 2009.

Fronted by the fantastically named Johnny Saint-Lethal the band are back in the studio working on new material having been forced to take a break in 2012/13 due to serious issues with Saint-Lethal's vocal chords (at one time his prognosis was as low as a 10% chance of recovery).

Having in the past supported. amongst others, School Of Seven Bells it's immediately clear to see why acts of that calibre and in that vein have found them taking to the stage on the earlier part of their live bills - The Show deploy a melodic and expansive brand of rock that, whilst not maybe quite of the sort you could describe as anthemic, pushes emotional buttons and easily bridges the intimacy gap between them and their audience.

Tracks such as 'Lie After Lie' share similar territory to that of the slower output of the likes of The Verve, albeit of a more mainstream bent whilst the likes of 'Black And Blue' show off their more raucous capabilities for the most part.

Coming smack up to date the band have recently self-released their latest EP, entitled …until you know what it it’s like to stand where there is no ground and have begun working on songs for their next full-length effort.

They've a few shows in the US at the end of the summer too so check them out if you get the chance:-

…until you know what it it’s like to stand where there is no ground is available from iTunes.