wolf alice at the barrowland ballrooms

By Maya Marie

This year I spent my Valentine’s evening immersed in the shimmer and haze of Wolf Alice’s Blue Weekend, as they kicked off their 2022 tour at the Barrowlands in Glasgow. Despite the gig being rescheduled from January due to Covid-19 numbers, the postponement to February 14th was truly perfect, the performance gifting an eclectic ode to love and friendship, in its various extremities.

The gig was opened luminously by Lucia and the Best Boys, a Glaswegian band, carried gloriously by the breath-taking dramatism of their forenamed figurehead. Due to the rescheduled date, the previously announced supporting acts were switched out, much to my initial disappointment, but I quickly forgot this as Lucia and her band graced the stage with their easy-to-catch-on-to lyrics and feel-good riffs.

With Blue Weekend being one of my favourite albums of 2021, I would have perfectly enjoyed a track-by-track playthrough. Each song on the album aligns beautifully with the next, whilst also providing variance and a trip through several genres. Hence, as a setlist in itself, it would have worked. But a band must also play its hits and, so, Wolf Alice did. Fan favourites from their first album, My Love is Cool, such as ‘Bros’, ‘Silk’, and ‘You’re a Germ’ were received with much excitement, though I must admit it is still strange to see many attempt to mosh to a glittery guitar-led indie song like ‘Bros’. The atmospheric ‘Silk’—one of Wolf Alice’s best songs to date—largely due to Ellie Rowsell’s mesmerising performance of a haunting inner dialogue, received undivided audience attention.

It’s at moments like these, when Wolf Alice give all they have to complex and delicate storytelling, that the band is at its strongest. And that’s where 2017’s Visions of a Life, though critically acclaimed, in my opinion, falls. I was reminded of this sentiment as a large proportion of the set’s first half was dedicated to songs from that album including ‘Beautifully Unconventional’ and ‘Formidable Cool’, in which on-the-nose messaging and brash, if not boring, guitar accompaniment reign. The subtlety, quirky charisma, and instrumental vibrance of similarly narrative-focused songs on Blue Weekend, such as ‘Delicious Things’, is much more engaging. Indeed, ‘Delicious Things’ was a standout song of the evening, Rowsell’s heavenly vocals complemented by bright pink lighting just as alluring as the L.A. life the song’s character enters. Both this song and ‘Lipstick on the Glass’ which preceded it, are layered with eclectic, shoegaze-esque instrumentation, which is even better, more immersive, when heard live.

An intimate moment was fostered in the performance of ‘Hard Feelings’, an acoustic song, in which Rowsell sat on the side of the stage, barely visible to, probably, the majority of the audience. That didn’t matter though; her soft, vulnerable tones built a beautiful foundation for the audience to latch onto, with lighters and phone torches held in the air. A communal feeling was also evoked in the singalong of the simple yet effective folk song, ‘Safe From Heartbreak (if you never fall in love)’. These quietly captivating moments greatly contrasted the performance of heavier songs throughout the gig, which it seems Wolf Alice still feel they need in order to prove their range in genre. Their previous albums featured more heavy-rock-ish, honestly just loud, tracks, and because of these origins, Wolf Alice seem hesitant to go a whole album without at least one in this style. On Blue Weekend, this is ‘Play the Greatest Hits’. Sonically and lyrically incongruent to the rest of the album in its hectic dissonance, it’s a struggle to see its value. This became evident during the gig; it is a song primarily for touring. Electric green flashing lights and an array of darkness in which you could barely see the band elevated the already chaotic song, providing a moment of, perhaps, cathartic headbanging and moshing. It did seem a little redundant though, amongst other similarly styled, but more interesting, tracks from previous albums, such as ‘Fluffy’ and ‘Moaning Lisa Smile’.

In comparison, Wolf Alice conveyed elegant refinement with ‘Feeling Myself’, a shimmering ode to self-pleasure that was, aptly, the climax of the show. In its drowsy organ and synth-led dreaminess, one can lose themselves. To match, the stage was set underwater in waves of blue and green light, and Rowsell, a mere silhouette, seductively danced – something never seen before by Wolf Alice.

Prior to the encore, Wolf Alice finished with their 2017 album’s title track, ‘Visions of a Life’, which metamorphoses melodically and stylistically for a whole eight minutes. Due to this song’s shifting nature, it doesn’t have a memorable chorus as such or any lyrical melody for the audience to latch onto. Consequently, it is a difficult song to be continually engaged by for such a long period of time, especially whilst standing. You’re left waiting for the song to kick off, but it never quite happens. Maybe if you’re a regular listener, you would have found some grounding, but ultimately it isn’t the most accessible song for a gig, and a strange choice to “end” on. Luckily for us, however, we were given an encore: ‘Don’t Delete the Kisses’, a dreamily layered track with anxiously confessional, but relatable, lyrics mapping the start of a new relationship. It provided a euphoric end to Valentine’s evening which brought people together in vulnerable, intimate moments and upbeat moshpits alike.