The Alarm - Oran Mor - 09/03/13 (Glasgow_

The Alarm.

Glasgow.

Sold out gig.

Six words that naturally work together.

You get a great band, a music loving city, and some rabid fans, and then when they all gravitate towards each other the magic is made.

On tour promoting the release of the movie Vinyl - a film that covers the time that the band hoaxed the charts and media by delivering a single under the name The Poppy Fields - the band are probably sounding as urgent as I have ever heard them.

Part of that is certainly down to the material that was freshly written for the soundtrack.

Mike has very obviously keyed into the roots of the band from as far back as when he and Twist were playing as The Toilets and injected the music with a late seventies punkyness.

It's a very welcome addition to the sound of the band, and one that certainly gets the heart racing and the blood being pushed to parts that it maybe hasn't managed to reach since the mid eighties.

For fans of the band it's conceivable that the new songs sound like an imaginary missing link between the Toilets and the Alarm.

That's of course if we neatly forget about Seventeen, and that no bad thing.

Not neatly forgetting Seventeen, but recreating a period in time that could be picked up on as a stepping stone that felt their feet as they went from the seventies to the eighties.

The set flows very well.

From Alarms classics to fan favourites to a section left to kick out the jams and get the new material road tested it all works and passes by with dizzying alacrity.

One minute I'm welcoming the band on stage and the next the lights are up and everyone is drifting away.

It wasn't a short performance, but more a hit and run one that had all the vim of youthful intent.

For guys who have been around the block a few times you could have closed your eyes and very easily imagined that this was a show from some young guns who were wanting to take on the world, and that is as it should be.

I wouldn't care to think about how many times I have seen the Alarm as it makes me feel old, but without exaggerating it this show was up there with the best of them.

The rendition of Spirit of '76 was worth the ticket price alone.

Major plus point for the night was also the take up on people volunteering to be added to the bone marrow transplant list that is championed by Love, Hope and Strength.

Fifty seven people in one night.

Now that's something that should be applauded as loudly as the band were.