We Took an Epic Journey for Twin Atlantic and Lonely The Brave

Last Thursday another Louder Now reporter and I grabbed some dinner and put the world to rights over cocktails (she read the sign outside said “bitch, its happy hour, get in the restaurant” and ran inside in all her Irish glory.)

We analysed every section of crappiness we could and moaned about how nothing we had planned was happening quite the way we wanted it to.

As most people do when suffering from any kind of life-crisis (we’ve dubbed ours a pre-life crisis) we decided that something drastic would have to happen to get rid of the general crappiness.

36 hours later we were in a Volkswagen Up! driving from South West London to Glasgow. Yeah. My grandmother tells me that I’m brave.

I know that this all sounds slightly senseless or, failing that, like the beginning of some sort of Thelma and Louise re-hash but it all becomes a lot more reasonable when I point out that we were off to see Twin Atlantic rip up their home town alongside Lonely the Brave.

THINGS I LEARNT FROM OUR ROADTRIP TO GLASGOW NO.1: Twin Atlantic and Lonely The Brave have made the best possible road trip music.

It was a 400 mile trip to Glasgow which took us about 8 hours (we stopped a billion times, all of which were my fault) so we listened to their albums, in each one’s entirety more than once. If you’re ever looking to learn the words to a song, play it on loop on a road trip. But the problem with epic albums is that you can’t help but think to yourself: “It just can’t be this good live.”

Red light. I promise I will get to the show, just bear with me.

Green light. Have you ever sat in a car and stared out the window, with the perfect song playing on the radio, and imagined yourself as the lead in some movie which involves an epic journey of discovery or the like? Lonely The Brave’s The Day’s War, which will be re-released on June 8^th, was 14 spectacular variations of that perfect song. It’s just the right amount of beautiful and moody. Hands-up time, I thought the term “Doom-Pop” was ridiculous when I saw it on Lonely The Brave’s Facebook, but that is accurately  and specifically what it is.

At this junction I should probably mention that I’m pretty infamous for suffering from chronic travel sickness. Ask my mother and she will tell you, in graphic detail, about the time we boarded a plane and was told on more than one occasion that we were SUPER lucky because the plane was brand spanking new. Yeah. I christened the hell out of that plane.

I know, I’m pretty much the idiot with hayfever who becomes a florist, but nevertheless there I was on an 800 mile round trip in a car that should probably never have been forced to do it, and I was freaking loving life. It’s incredibly difficult to even remember that you feel significantly poorly when you’re listening to Twin Atlantic’s Hold On from their 2014 album Great Divide.

THINGS I LEARNT FROM OUR ROADTRIP TO GLASGOW NO.2: The song The Ghost of Eddie from Twin Atlantic’s first album, Free, makes you feel all sorts of bad-ass.

You remember the crappiness I mentioned? I’m pretty sure we had all but forgotten it by the time we spotted the mountains in Cumbria. (I’ve looked them up and I know that their technically hills but from where I was sitting those were mountains dammit.)   

Anyway, half a bag-for-life of snacks, a thousand re-plays of Heart and Soul, and 8 phone calls from my mother later (no exaggeration), and we arrived in Glasgow.

THINGS I LEARNT FROM OUR ROADTRIP TO GLASGOW NO.3: There’s a reason people rave about Scottish meat.  

We checked into our hotel, did our hair and make-up (we were owed the girly time), sent a dozen e-mails and headed into Glasgow to explore. We popped into a Bar & Kitchen called Neighbourhood where I had the best burger I have ever had and then laughed because I forgot where I was. Of course the burgers were amazing.

Only marginally recovered from the journey we took the short walk to The SSE Hydro Arena which, by the way, is stunning and an incredible venue which gives Wembley and The O2 a run for their money. 

Amber light: we’ve now arrived at the show, see, I told you we would get there eventually.

First up were the Cambridge doom-pop-rockers. Lonely The Brave took all of my worries about not being as fantastic live and obliterated them in style. Their set was magically moody and really intriguing. These guys have had a pretty eventful year themselves clocking up over 10,000 miles over seven and a half weeks for their UK and Euro tour, being nominated for Best Video at the Kerrang! Awards and preparing to re-release their album, The Day’s War, as I mentioned before.

Track number two on that album, Trick of the Light, is particularly gorgeous and this will not be the last time an arena hosts it.

We were lucky enough to pose a few stupid questions to Lonely The Brave and you can see what ridiculousness ensued here. 

THINGS I LEARNT FROM OUR ROADTRIP TO GLASGOW NO.4: Chatting to one band during the show means missing another band’s set we’re really sorry Eliza and The Bear!

Twin Atlantic pulled off something remarkable without even stepping foot on the stage. Before their grand entrance the crowd was treated to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, in its full glory, and the arena was more than happy to play along blaring out the words as if there were a band up there.

Then the main attraction burst on to the stage in an explosion of streamers.

THINGS I LEARNT FROM OUR ROADTRIP TO GLASGOW NO.5: Twin Atlantic are HUGE fans of streamers and confetti and balloons and basically anything it is okay to throw at an audience.

THINGS I LEARNT FROM OUR ROADTRIP TO GLASGOW NO.6: Twin Atlantic fans are HUGE supporters of having stuff thrown at them.  

As they launched into 2011’s Make A Beast of Myself (which may well be the best opener of all time) it was obvious how much this show, and the whole tour, meant to Twin Atlantic. Even people in the very top tier of this 13,000 capacity arena could feel it (like us).

“We might have taken the long way round” admits front man Sam McTrusty, and yeah, he’s probably right (but then so did we). In any event they ended up right where they were supposed to be, headlining the best venues at home and across the country.

What makes this band so special is the broad spectrum they range across. They can fire out trashy rock songs like Make A Beast of Myself and Free but stretch out towards power-pop-anthems like Hold On and Heart & Soul. They can even deliver spotlessly beautiful heart warmers like Oceans and Crash Land. They do all of it quite brilliantly. 

Take a look at the extensive list of bands that Twin Atlantic have supported (sometimes being handpicked by the headliners themselves) and it becomes pretty clear how they do it. My Chemical Romance, Blink-182, Limp Bizkit. Twin Atlantic are influenced by an array of legendary artists stretching from one end of the rock world to the other and that’s really paid off for them. 

It was one of those gigs where you would have been more than happy for the headliners to carry on into the morning. I would have listened to Twin Atlantic play every song they have ever written and I was a little bit gutted when they exited the stage.

We sort of crawled back to the hotel and then collapsed there in a pile of exhaustion. Most people would probably tell you that it’s a little bit stupid to drive 400 miles for a gig. Anything could have happened to us. The car could have broken down (and to all extents and purposes it probably should have done), we could have ended up in a horror hotel and wish that we were back in London, we could have got lost in Glasgow never to return with only a life of kilt wearing ahead of us.

THE ULTIMATE THING I LEARNT FROM OUR ROADTRIP TO GLASGOW: It’s a risk worth taking, to have a life worth living (Twin Atlantic, Hold On, ‘Free’ 2011).