Live: Bob Mould, Oran Mor, Glasgow
- Written by Kenneth McMurtrie
Bob Mould’s Silver Age album, by rights, should have been in my Top 20 of 2012. Having unfortunately not managed to hear it until February 2013 it missed out. As returns to form go though you’d be hard pressed to find a better example within the last 18 months. Tonight therefore promised to be somewhat special.
The capacity crowd were as reverent as expected when Bob and the band took to the stage. Bearded and bespectacled you could wonder at the possibility of the current album’s title being a comment on the point he’s reached in his life. You’d not recognise him on the street. But then that’s not where he’s at his best. With little preamble and the audience’s welcoming roar not yet fully faded a Sugar medley is launched into and we’re off.
‘A Good Idea’, ‘Changes’ and other early gems from the era of that first 
post-Husker Du band get an airing and the years since they first came out just fall away. Still fresher than the output of many acts who’ve come (and gone) since the crowd laps them up and Bob, Jason Narducy (bass) and Jon Wurster (drums) are obviously having as good a time as those who’ve come to soak it all up.
A couple of songs later and there’s a minor stoppage for a bit of kit replacement (a pedal or amp has been blown. Something you expect happens a lot with the power these mere devices have to put up with being channelled through them). Bob, his glasses now ghosted with sweat and condensation so he appears mole-like, affably chats away with the crowd as if he’d known them all for years. This is a man very much free of ego.
Once things kick off again it’s with a new level of loudness. Make that in fact LOUDNESS. Given the sophistication of the audience one bloke’s in danger of having his glass of red wine blown off the speaker stack. Although incorporating a curiously muddy element all night (support act North Atlantic Oscillation suffered particulary from this on their first number) the sound managed to be forceful but thankfully not ear splitting.
‘Star Machine’ from the current album along with ‘I Apologize’, ‘Hoover Dam’ and ‘Gee Angle’ were all torn through in the course of the main set. A feedback howl covered the band’s exit and return to the stage for an encore that pushed the bounds of quality even further and then, on the stroke of ten, it was all over. Bob stood around for 30 seconds or so gratefully but humbly accepting the fans’ adulation before bidding us all a good night.
Opening act North Atlantic Oscillation were a group I was previously only aware of by name. Surviving almost dropping a keyboard when they’d barely stepped on the stage and weathering the aforementioned sound issue their allotted half hour was one that saw continual improvement. With a sound owing a debt to The Cardiacs, Yes and Sugar (handy for tonight) they hit their stride in the 3rd song of the set, aided in no small part by a real increase in volume when the drums were unleashed to full effect. Their penultimate number had a real God Machine feel about the sound whilst closer ‘Hollywood Has Ended’, from 2010 album Grappling Hooks, is as good a reason to check out their recorded work as any. They didn’t have that long to perform but were honoured to have had the chance so it’s a decent feather in their cap and they can be rightly pleased with the warm up job they undertook.