Plasmas - The Hunter S Thompson Friday 18 November 2022
So after two days of waiting on Noah’s Ark passing the house I decided to abandon my plans of travelling to see Declan Welsh and the Decadent West in Glasgow, but as they say every cloud has a silver lining as it now meant I could stay local and nip into see one of my favourite Dundee bands Plasmas launch their new EP, A Summers Day Can Break Your Heart.
As always I’m there early to catch the supports and tonight its gonna be a good one, with support from Red Vanilla another of my favourite local bands and Fife’s Sunstinger a band im long overdue catching live.
Red Vanilla kicked off the evening with a stunning alt rock set, bringing us some catchy pop hooks set amidst some crushing rock riffs held together with some fabulous drumming.
They are a young band with a rising star and don’t lack confidence in their music, choosing to drop from a shortened support set their only single released to date Embers in order to ensure they get to play more of their yet to be released songs. A bold move but didn’t stop them from having the crowd in the palm of their hands by the end of their set.
Red Vanilla are a band I’ve seen a few times and they get better and better every time, they are definitely ones to keep an eye on.
Next up and hailing from Fife were Sunstinger who were playing their first gig in The City of Discovery.
Now I had the pleasure of reviewing a couple of their singles Shimmer and The Void back in 2020, so I knew how good they sounded and was looking forward to seeing them live.
And they did not disappoint as they brought their shimmering shoegaze rock to The Hunter S with a six track set that saw them receive some love from the crowd.
I definitely won’t be waiting so long to see them again live!
And finally we have the headliners Dundee band Plasmas who are one of my favourite up and coming bands.
The set kicks off with a sharp instrumental Jail Jam to get the crowd warmed up and sets the scene with what’s ahead.
They then launch into Look & See and we get the first opportunity to hear Ross McQueen’s brilliant vocals and get a feel for why this band should make it big. They deliver brilliant melodies in short sharp blasts of perfect indie pop.
As well as Ross on vocals and guitar we have James Swan (bass), Conor McBay (lead guitar), Rory Strathie (synth) and Sam Walker (drums).
Next up is Is It Everything You Want? another fantastic tune that hooks you in with the fantastic guitar riffs and the underlying synths and drums that ensure it keeps a foot tapping beat.
See It Through gives the crowd its first real opportunity to sing along with its shimmering guitar hooks and easy to remember chorus.
We then have a little change up with the next track Notice, James swaps his bass for guitar and takes over the lead vocals with Conor taking over bass duties. This is the first track that James has written and gives us a track that feels very nostalgic.
It’s all change back to the original set up as we get Happiness a track written by Conor. This for me was one of the standout songs of the night, it just feels so glittery and makes you want to dance and sing along.
Stay Where You Are and Get To Know You continue the theme of well written and melodic indie pop and keep the feet moving as the crowd are feeling the beat of the music and starting to bounce along.
Sway does exactly as it says on the tin with its melody encouraging us to sway along to the perfect pop being delivered.
With the end of evening fast approaching we get What You Do To Me which is another standout in the set, Ross admitting that it was about his anxiety in processing events and could see from his emotional delivery how personal this song was.
To end the set we have a crowd favourite Always which has a real energy to it and has The Hunter S crowd bouncing along and sees Ross leave the stage and go hurtling into the crowd to have a bit of a mosh.
But the night wasn’t quite over over a chant of one more tune we had the pleasure of hearing Will You Be There an unreleased track which was an absolute banger.
Plasmas definitely demonstrated from this performance why they are tipped to be one of next big things in Scotland, they were absolutely outstanding.
What an absolutely brilliant night of music with all three bands, Red Vanilla, Sunstinger and Plasmas delivering brilliant sets and showing us that there is no shortage of brilliant up and coming local bands.
But as we were here to help Plasmas launch their new EP I will sign off with a link: