This is not going to be a normal review.
To be fair, Dana (I feel the abbreviation in necessary as it’s very hard to keep counting my ‘na’s’) are anything but normal.
I’d never been to the Ivy before, but as I wandered in through the side entrance, I looked around and thought, “They must be playing down stairs. There’s no where near enough room up here.”
A sold out gig for an album launch of one of Glasgow’s nosiest bands (in all senses of the word noisest) on one of the hottest days of the year? I could see how this was going to go.
I’d been to one Dana gig before, when they played at Oran Mor (last year?), and literally, my t-shirt was soaked in sweat by the time I left. Between a walls of hugs and jumping about like a Duracell bunny on heat, in a room that was at least twice the size of the Ivy, and no where near sold out; I knew for a fact that tonight’s gig was going to be… sweaty.
But sweaty in a good way.
Bronto Skylift suitably set the bar for the night; they are possibly the loudest and tightest bands out there. I really wish they had been placed second on the running order, as they totally blew the crowd away, despite some technical issues leaving Niall without vocals for a couple of songs, and Iain’s drum kit sliding away from him throughout the gig.
Crashing, banging and screaming through their set, the electricity between the crowd and the band was unexplainable. We, the audience, could see and hear that they were having technical issues, and they could see that we still loved it all the same.
Their enthusiasm for their music was reflected perfectly in the crowd; it was beyond head bopping, it was involuntary body bopping. Iain’s spectacular drumming again is just another attribute to their music. The practice that man must put in to be that talented at his art, and art is about the only word I can use to even start to describe how he drums.I’m not sure if it was out of being in the moment or just being pissed off at the sound, but the duo broke into the crowd at the end of their set and performed their last song on a table. You know, as you do.
It was the dramatic craziness that tends to encapsulate Dana gigs; I think if they’d got us to do a couple of stretches pre and post set, they would have been the perfect warm up for the Dana boys.
Young Legionnaire took to the stage next and in all honesty, I wish they had gone on first. The trio delivered their post-hardcore sounds strongly, especially since they had to deal with the continuous sound problems throughout their set. But it seemed that the atmosphere dampened a wee bit after the excitement of Bronto. Those boys had the placed strummed and stuck into a frenzy, and, maybe it was substantially down to the technical problems and the fact that the audience was getting more and more packed into a very small and sweaty room, that the buzz just didn’t seem to be the same. 
However, by the time the Glaswegian six-piece, swaggered onto the stage, you could feel the excitement in the air, primarily through the body heat from the people you were squished next to. That many Dana fans crammed together on a hot night was bound to lead to an atmosphere of anticipation.
The boys were clearly raring to go. They looked adamant and ready to give us the performance that our already sweaty bodies deserved. Dana are a band who clearly love to perform. Their excitement is apparent in their recordings and is almost over powering in their live gigs.
Now why I am saying that this is not a normal review is because, normally, there would be some sort of set list slotted in amongst the paragraphs. However, again as I said before; this is not a normal review.
At a Dana gig, you do not have the opportunity to whip out your phone and start typing in a set list. Nor would you want to!
With Calum and John, who battle it out on the vocals front (Calum won this one, but I think that’s only because John’s mic was not playing the game; another technical issue of the evening) while bounding out into the audience, hugging folk and joining in with the mild moshing and manic dancing.
The gig was for the release of their album, There is a Way, following Hey Everyone. Between their albums and their live performances, you can see that they exude excitement. And it’s wonderful, refreshing and catching. I am excited by Dananananaykyrod.
And I was also exceptionally sweaty by the end of their gig. But that’s only because it was involuntary movement to jump along and dance like a loser with the rest of the crammed, sweaty and excited people in that very small room.
