Since forming in the summer of 2013, Glasgow trio Megalomatic have gradually transformed from just another band on the scene, to one of the city’s most promising rock prospects, and for their first gig of 2017, they were given the opportunity to headline King Tuts as part of the New Year’s Revolution festival.
Undoubtedly playing the biggest show of their lives, would they deliver on the prestigious stage?
Opening up were Heavy Smoke, who we last saw way back in late 2014 when they played the Distort event. We had vague memories of them being good, and you know what, they were exactly that and more.
They worked hard to kick off the gig on a high note, and were – for lack of a better term – quite heavy. Leading man Stevie displayed an abundance of wild energy, in fact he got so into it that his voice broke during the penultimate song.
Adding to that were blazing riffs, crunching bass chords and hard hitting drumming. Junkatron, DIY Rock N Roll and their eponymous number were all great in particular, and got plenty of people headbanging, as well as two girls in front of us dancing with much incitement.
Despite being a little iffy towards the end, they got the proceedings heated up rather nicely and set a bar to be topped.
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Artie Ziff headed up next and just killed it. An outstanding performance from the self-proclaimed “rage indie” 3-piece on all fronts, from the dual harmonies, to thrilling choruses, to intoxicating rhythms.
It was a truly tight, excellent set that thoroughly impressed us and got the now packed room in a pure buzz; in return, they gave the band a deservedly enthusiastic response.
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Animals To Creators had a pair of tough acts to follow. Starting off at a lesser pace than from what we had seen before proved to be a hindrance, with us not getting into it at first.
But in due time, they gained our interest as their tunes got better and better, with Redemption being awfully catchy, Hallow featuring some neat drum beats, and Wolfbeat booting up the tempo and being by far the best of the lot.
While their placement on the bill was probably not the most ideal, it was still solid stuff nonetheless.
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Afterwards, he crowd drifted over to the front of the stage, all raring for Megalomatic. The lights dimmed and with a burst of thick smoke, the guys walked on to the sound of HWFG chants.
What An Uncomfortable Sentence sent everybody into a ballistic frenzy, culminating with an intense pit in the centre of the room that split the audience into pieces; the chaos further escalating with Stan Darsh.
They took it down a notch for Johnny Doesn’t Drink, slowly but surely building to an immense climax, and engaged fans passionately shouted back the lyrics of JLU: The Destroyer.
Between the familiar favourites, all the newer material was smashing, and the final song came to a head when Harris of HD Music lived up to his character and got his surf game on, much to the dismay of the security.
Their encore performance of Knees Crushed By An Electric Circus got all in the venue going bananas one last time to wrap up the set in sensational fashion.
The guys had played their hearts out – whilst seemingly avoiding their regular curse of nagging tech issues – and were eternally grateful for the reception, but there was no doubt that they had earned it.
Following them since their infancy, we are so proud that they have reached this level and were able to showcase their potential in the best way possible. Above and beyond the best set we had witnessed of the 2017 New Year’s Revolution festival so far.