Live Review: International Airport, St. Deluxe, Pete Dowling, Stephen Pastel DJ at The Universal, Glasgow, Scotland, 21st April 2005

review by anna battista

After Scottish composer Pete Dowling (perhaps better known for his work with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and Ken) has entertained us with a sparkling laptop set and live electronics that for half an hour or so made us feel as if we were on mars, St. Deluxe take us on a trip through their music. At times they echo Teenage Fanclub (see tracks such as ‘Distant Light’ and ‘Transcendental Underground’ for example), at other the Beach Boys, they anyway have a good attitude to music and to playing live and they are enthusiastically cheered by the crowd.

While we wait for International Airport, Stephen Pastel plays for us some of his fave songs, among them also a beautiful ‘60s track sung by Italian singer Mina and arranged by Ennio Morricone, ‘Se Telefonando’. Later on, International Airport perform a few songs from their latest joyful and poetical album Reunion Of Island Goose.

Some of the band’s members are missing tonight, but Tom Crossley and friends try to do their best to play their tender and sensitive tracks with a pop edge. Among the others, they deliver a pretty good rendition of their single ‘Association’ (recently released with a cover of the same song by Teenage Fanclub), of the gentle ‘From Between My Daddie's Toes’ and of ‘Cordial Arrest’. The latter makes us feel as if it were already summer - also thanks to its mind-lulling melodies and to its lyrics - and concludes an excellent evening spent in the company of different bands with very different, but equally beautiful, sounds.

Photograph by Anna Battista