Thurs, April 25 | Upstairs, Inverness | Neon Waltz, support The Dazed Digital Age

The future was everywhere in Neon Waltz’s main set – though so was their past and present

It was good to be back in a venue full of fans for an incredible gig at Upstairs, Inverness, on a Thursday night. .. or any night. On top, there was the music. A dream pairing of Neon Waltz from Caithness and Inverness indie electronica specialists The Dazed Digital Age came with consequences, loving the love-in as the two have a bit of a mutual adoration society thing going on between them. If they were knights of old, there would have been low bows and flourishes of ostrich-plumed helmets when each mentioned the other.

For lots of reasons this was a gig that should see its punters now forwarding through their calendars for December to remember not to forget: was this ALREADY gig of the year?

Probably that’s the euphoria of a just-heard gig talking … but it’s good to feel like that in a small venue in the North of Scotland in the spring of 2024 when venues are closing everywhere and live band audiences can be thin on the ground.

The Dazed Digital Age was a good choice to support and get the night started. This time last year they were the guinea-pigs playing as the first band in the venue where a growing number of club nights were calling it ‘home’. That night, you could see a mix of band and dance audiences wary, watching. But it worked  – thanks to The DDA’s hybrid indie-dance sound, perhaps? Now things have moved on with the venue regularly hosting clubs – and bands.

Maybe it was the presence in their line-up of Martin Gowans, DJ and producer Polymath in his other life – also frontman Gordon McKerrow and guitarist Ally Duncan (veteran of other line-ups and just over a year in with this one) – but the three pumped Thursday night alive instantly with squelchingly low beats and angsty vocals from recent single Fragmented In Time.

Quirky banter is always in play. Tracks Pete Doherty and finisher Comedy Will Rise Again seem tongue in cheek titles, but the music tells a different story. Though electronica majored in the sound from tracks taken from the early days, Symon saw Ally Duncan’s guitar line shoogling its presence into an evolving sound.

Best bit: when first single IV shimmies alive, its bigger than anything else in the whole postcode area. Shut your eyes and futurise: the track echoes out over an entire dancing festival crowd; your imagination locates The DDA, tiny on a vast outdoor stage.

The future was everywhere in Neon Waltz’s main set, though so was their past and present. Some setlist mathematics shows they’re not shy to pepper new songs from latest and second album Honey Now into the latest set they played in Inverness. But there were old favourites too to sing along with and take home in your ears. Plus there was the re-emergence of a cover that sounded so good sailing out over the Radio Scotland Afternoon Show airwaves last week. Where they’re at now, Sinead O’Connor’s song Black Boys On Mopeds is a highspot of the Neon present.

Standing a couple of feet in front of them at the Inverness gig, you could see the familiar experience they must know so well of creating a Neon Waltz live performance, but almost no hint of the graft of it, as they rolled it out and shared a slick normality of six being together on stage. Seamless and focussed, the songs and their band played, drummer Darren Coghill’s heartbeat powering up the sound at their backs.

First, frontman Jordan Shearer lightened the mood as the Inverness and Caithness voices quietened.

“We come from a place called John O’Groats and a few from Inverness have said to me today ‘Your accent is really funny!’.”

He paused and grinned: “I feel that’s incredibly rich …”

After opener As Good As Gone from Honey Now injected pure adrenalin, the frontman returned to the Inverness accent. Tongue in cheek, he wryly joked: “I love it actually …”

Any chance of inter-county war neatly averted, the gig charged forward opening out all the reasons Honey Now is an essential album for where we are now and where the band has been. All I Need conjures up in your mind the stamina you must have to have to keep a band going, as it talks straight at you “All my life this is all I wanted to do …” And the raw power in the album, song Thoughts|Dreams|Regrets, hit the stage “The world is changing and I’m lost in space again…” but it’s a love song too, isn’t it?

Inventive music kept the set vital, mood changes, shifts in speed. Occasionally Jordan closed his eyes behind his tinted glasses and took a moment from a sometimes writhing, sometimes leaning in, energetic performance.

If you needed to, you had to force your body not to start dancing, but it’s hard to resist. Some people just couldn’t help themselves, let go, danced and it was kind of beautiful to watch the music in them. As the songs went back in time to Strung Up from 2020’s Huna EP, the band spun their wild card, cover Black Boys On Mopeds.

The political power of the late Sinead O’Connor’s lyrics suit our times as much as they suit Jordan’s voice being piercing and clean. Singing high, the frontman tapped into the song’s quiet anger and the entire band performance was stunning.

The old song closing the show – Dreamers – was a triumphant singalong. Words “You should do what you love while you can…” a mantra lived by Neon Waltz for the last 10 years and counting. MC