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Kodaline, Barrowlands, Glasgow

  • Published in Live

Kodaline - Barrowlands

Arriving just in time to catch the support act ahead of  headliners at the Barrowlands Ballroom, Port Isla set the bar high for Kodaline as their world tour kicks off here in Glasgow. With their well crafted harmonies and folk melodies as well as their catchy riffs and walking basslines, the lads from Norwich don’t miss a trick to get the early arriving, sold-out gathering on side.

Having already smashed BBC Introducing and made fans at Glastonbury last year, it's great to see them perform their knock out tracks like ‘Steamroller’ and ‘In The Long Run’ before delivering their performance of the night with ‘Better Love’.

One big applause only becomes another bigger one until the reason everyone turned out finally took to the stage. With Port Isla having lifted everyone’s spirits early, Kodaline were only left with the task of shouting “Glasgow” before breaking out with synth-driven ‘Ready’ from their new album Coming Up For Air.

With Garrigan instrument free for the opener, it’s not long before the mandolin and harmonica are the first instruments to be pulled from his arsenal as they followed on with yester-years hit single ‘Love Like This’. New album highlight ‘Unclear’ does enough to confirm that the new tracks are translating very well to the live setting. The song is underpinned by Vinny May’s recreation of the bodhran sound on drums and with the crowd stepping up in the absence of the choir, the darkened ballroom was soon alight with Garrigan’s minions and their phone torch lights.

Both new and debut album tracks got their lion’s share of the set list with crowd pleaser ‘High Hopes’ raising the roof in the middle of the set once more.  Halfway through and already fast becoming a treat to see Kodaline in this comparatively intimate space, there were still a few new songs to come. Carefully slotting them between more debut album favourites, it became quite instructive how the band have developed since then with four of the final five tracks before the encore being taken from Coming Up For Air.

Piano track ‘Love Will Set You Free’ closed the first act of the performance before they re-emerged for their encore to play the notable exclusion ‘Honest’ before turning the lights off after sing-a-long ‘All I Want’. By the end of the night, the crowd had been whipped up into frenzy whether wallowing in melancholia or outdancing and outsinging the Irish quartet.

Despite the ballads, the show could never take a kicking for their absence of big tunes, with Steve Garrigan seemingly being able to play the crowd as well as any of his instruments, Kodaline managed to make everything fit tonight. At moments it was sparse & atmospheric, then chanting and bouncing. Maybe Kodaline had found what they were looking for when starting the tour in Glasgow as drummer Vinny May said “Barrowland in March last year, was such a mental night and a great venue”.

 

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Kodaline – Coming Up For Air

  • Published in Albums

 

It’s been just over a year and a half since Kodaline blew up in the mainstream with tracks like ‘High Hopes’ and ‘Love Like This’ from their debut album In a Perfect World. They became notable for Steve Garrigan’s perfectly-pitched radio voice and soaring melodies delivered over arrangements that seemed to vary all the more in style as the album drew on.

Their latest offering Coming Up For Air is more of the same, meaning, different from track to track. Anyone who has been anticipating this album since then would have already caught a listen to the lead single ‘Honest’ and would have been rubbing their hands at another killer hook from the Irish lads. 

Although there are the clear differences stylistically during phases of the album, second track ‘The One’ does follow on from the lead, with big choruses building from an opening ballad setting. As much of these differences or lack of exist, oddly, things are rather more balanced in terms of song quality this time, which in turn, gives it a more consistent flow.

‘Human Again’ is the first to sway from course with its intro which could have come from a Switchfoot track before sounding like The Killers midway through. The album’s highlight track is bestowed with ‘Unclear’ and primarily because of its simplicity. Tribal vocals complete with the drum rhythm, which we got a glimpse of on ‘All I Want’, but now on a grander scale. With its inclusion of a choir, that same voice bares soul and produces a spacious delivery which demands attention.

“It feels so good, it feels so right” probably sums up the happy-go-lucky folk track ‘Coming Alive’ and it isn’t as unsuspecting as any fan will know. Whereas, on ‘Lost’ you could swear that you were listening to Muse for a chorus or two but the song is as diverse as the album so waivers there and back and reveals another of the album’s gems.

The album is a mix of singer-songwriter piano driven tracks, slow burners building up to big hooks and choruses and some all-out fun. ‘Play The Game’ is hedged between two of the piano driven tracks and is one of the funkier tracks. You could imagine it being the hit that OneRepublic or Maroon 5 wish they would have penned before they both careered off course from their earlier, better albums. 

Although at moments it’s lyrically quite trite, the songwriting is a tad stronger and instrumentally a lot better. There are potentially a few big singles on Coming Up For Air that will see this band through to another album or maybe even already cement their arrival as one of the best piano and guitar pop bands around. Kodaline will want to take a deep breathe whilst up for air as they look ready to embark upon another big year.

Coming Up For Air is available from amazon & iTunes

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