The Antlers, Oran Mor, Glasgow
- Published in Live
After a three-year absence from Scotland, The Antlers return to Glasgow as part of their tour promoting third album Familiars.
The Brooklyn trio's performance is a great representation of their music, beautifully mesmerising and almost cathartic. Focused mostly on their latest release, the band kick start their performance with 'Palace'. Similar to most of their set, the live version of the opener is elongated with slightly different arrangements, giving it even more hypnotizing effect. And hypnotized we are.
Silberman, Lerner and Cicci deliver an outstanding performance and they could not have asked for a better venue. Oran Mor allows for a kind of intimacy between the act and the audience that is almost impossible to attain elsewhere. Although throughout their performance the band say just a few words, the atmosphere of closeness and a kind of bond between the trio and the public is not hard to notice.
During the encore the band seem to be more outspoken and even invite the audience to sing happy birthday to their tour manager (Glasgow born-and-bred). Even though this is the only act of any dialogue with the audience it is all that's needed. The music seems to be enough and Oran Mor quietly accepts a few 'thank you's' from Silberman, who is giving his best whilst fighting off a cold.
Even with a clear dominance of the most recent material, the band manage to squeeze in some of the crowd's favourites, such as 'No Widows' or 'I Don't Want Love'. However, some pre-Familiars fans might argue that the set list is not balanced enough since it does not include any singles from Hospice. The Antlers' last record offers an exceptionally long list of great songs though so deciding on the set-list must be a tough job for the band.
