TRNSMT Saturday review: World Cup fever helps generate special atmosphere
Kasabian, the Snuts and Sonny Fodera tap into football theme at Glasgow festival
It sounds like everybody wants a piece of Scotland this week, and Saturday at TRNSMT the day after a Scotland match at the World Cup (regardless of the result) created its own special kind of atmosphere.
“This city's one of the greatest places on earth and every time we play here it gets bigger and better,” announced headliners Kasabian’s frontman Serge Pizzorno, as he gave their song Underdog an appropriate Tartan Army dedication.
West Lothian boys the Snuts’ singer Jack Cochrane had a different spin, saying “the Scottish bam at a festival”, should be as globally celebrated as the Tartan Army themselves. The Snuts’ set was bright and optimistic, including celebrations of localism like Glasgow and Motherlands, with a pleasing request from Cochrane to not “be set against each other by some idiot online… it's much better when we come together”.
Even Sonny Fodera, a lone DJ and pop producer like an Australian Calvin Harris, brandished a Saltire and enjoyed the adulation. His continuous set blended club classics from Gat Décor and Ewan McVicar with his own hits, including Think About Us with guest vocalist Poppy Baskcomb and Asking with Clementine Douglas, fresh from her own King Tut’s Stage set.
A lot of the more intriguing acts (like thoughtful Leeds indie contingent English Teacher and operatic pop outfit the Last Dinner Party) appeared earlier in the day. Meanwhile, on the King Tut’s Stage, Rose Gray gave an energetic, clubby solo performance, culminating in her electropop anthem Party People, Douglas balanced virtuosic singing with electronic backing and Loyle Carner’s soulful, charismatic set called out the “toxic masculinity bulls***” he grew up with, a pleasing moment of openness and confessional individuality.
After all this, the evening’s headliners – with Pizzorno at first flaunting a heat-defying leopard-print coat – were a crowd-pleasing bunch; predictable, but perfectly suited to the occasion. Turned up to thunderous levels, Kasabian classics like Club Foot, Shoot the Runner, Empire and the grooving You’re in Love with a Psycho felt like the festival equivalent of a World Cup highlights package.
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