'All you good good people' in the Barrowlands - The return of Embrace

Scott Simpson

You could smell the nostalgia in the air. Piles and Piles of predominantly middle-aged rock n rollers resurfaced in Glasgow’s throwback gig of the night. On the 6th of March, the Barrowland Ballroom hosted it’s 9th Embrace concert. The band dedicated the night to their debut album ‘The Good Will Out’ which, much like the venue, sold out harder than John Lydon starring in country life butter adverts.

Danny McNamara and the boys played the entire debut album from start to finish in a guns blazing crowd pleasing continuum. Starting with ‘All you good good people’ the crowd were loosened up instantaneously. The audience had no holdbacks in dancing and screaming as they did in the early years of the band’s success. ‘My weakness is none of your concern’ the following track’s first verse “don’t wanna let you down” was heard and dismissed as the ballroom were nothing but impressed with the 90’s band’s return.

I had heard rumours from die hard followers of the band about Danny’s voice performing poorly around the time of their second album ‘drawn from memory’ tour back in 2000. These whispers were knocked down as McNamara’s voice reached mesmerising heights in songs like ‘higher sights’ and ‘last gas’ which threw the crowd back to the nineties in a euphoria filled nostalgic trip of the band’s performances. The band cracked patter and danced around each other as an exciting rock band should.

“I can see a lot of smiling faces” Richard McNamara the lead guitarist described the sea of smiles in the ballroom before him. Me too, Richard, me too. 

After taking the usual break pre encore, the band returned to play some of their eclectically electric rock-pop tracks such as ‘ashes’ and ‘refugees’ with it’s dance beat and sound modified vocals.

“Now I know some of you are getting older. But I don’t wanna see any motherfucker not jumping up and down unless I get a sick note” Keeping in mind the age of Embrace and their fans, I’d never seen such a youthful spirit in the ballroom. Inspiringly, the band took their ninth bow as the piano rang out in the end of ‘ashes’

This gig is not the usual gig I’d head up to Glasgow for, but I’m chuffed I made the trek. Embrace, for an aging band, their performance last night clearly put every fan back in their element and altogether the band and crowd truly embraced what they’re all about.