Anna Burch @ The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, 8 May

Anna Burch's Hug and Pint show may lack something truly memorable but it's absolutely faultless and no one leaves unsatisfied

Live Review by Tony Inglis | 09 May 2018

Often the best gigs have something imperfect about them; a quality beyond the danceability of the songs, the impressiveness of the instrumentation, and the tunefulness of the voices. The best live music can be reckless and shambolic, and yet still reach a level of transcendence.

But what if gigs have no such blemishes? How do you rate a show that is, in fact, flawless? These are the kind of superlatives that apply to Detroit music scene mainstay Anna Burch’s trip to Glasgow in support of her effortless solo full-length Quit the Curse.

She and her bandmates breeze through most of the album devoid of faults. The songs are simple but direct, whether it’s the delightful twee of 2 Cool 2 Care, which shines with an aptly Glaswegian indie sensibility, to the slack, Malkmus-esque hooks of Asking 4 for a Friend (which Burch wryly introduces as a song about “dating your drug dealer”). The laid-back, internet-parlance of those two song titles are not lost on Burch – she explains how her third, this time not plagued by illness, visit to the city has left her feeling a literary vibe, even if the numerals chosen to name those songs suggests she isn’t usually.

Everything on stage is tight and economical, performed to precision. It’s hard not to marvel at a group of players so comfortable at the top of their live game, and at Burch, a leader who is relaxed and composed. Even the twangy lilt of country detour Belle Isle, a strange outlier on the album, hits home live, and album highlight Tea-Soaked Letter rightly closes the set.

This is all without even mentioning the support tonight – sudden industry darling Harriette Pilbeam, aka Hatchie. The Brisbane-based artist has been forced into the limelight ahead of tonight’s show, having been branded the “dream-pop idol of tomorrow” by Pitchfork. Riding on the back of some excellent singles ahead of an EP release, The Hug & Pint’s audience is filled out early to catch her, perhaps for the last time in such an intimate venue.

There’s no question that – with the amount of hype surrounding Hatchie – Anna Burch’s headline slot is if not overshadowed at least pushed to the back of attendees' minds as Pilbeam and her bandmates take to the stage, straddling the line between shoved-in-your-face buzz band and an unknown quantity.

Happily, both sets are a different experience. Burch is all clean guitar lines and restraint, while Hatchie is oversaturated maximalism enrapturing your every sense, feedback tones from one track melding into the next. Each song sounds like someone took Cherry Coloured Funk and passed it through a filter, with Hatchie's output the end product. That sounds like a criticism of similarity, but for anyone who loves Cocteau Twins or the brighter side of shoegaze, it’s a total sugar rush.

But tonight is all Burch’s. The night may lack that hard-to-pin-down quality of the most memorable shows, but owning a packed room by doing exactly what everyone there expects, leaving no one unsatisfied, is a hard enough trick to pull off. The only audible negative is a quiet, insincere “boo” when Burch announces her last song. As she says, they’ll take it.

https://annaburchmusic.com/