Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers @ SWG3, Glasgow, 27 Jan

Viral sensation Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers roll into town for a raucous Sunday night at SWG3 and play a five-star show to a one-star crowd

Live Review by Paul Sinclair | 30 Jan 2019
  • Hobo Johnson

It's a mixed bag tonight at Glasgow’s SWG3 for overnight sensation Hobo Johnson, real name Frank Lopes Jr. The youth of Glasgow are definitely a majority in this fairly packed venue; a loud and intense atmosphere, a cocktail of bucky, attitude and, as one lad in particular kept desperately seeking, gear.

It starts off pretty funny, actually. On the shoulders of another mad lad, a dude holds up a phone with 'GEAR???' plastered across its screen. It’s a fun way to keep the restless crowd entertained, as a back-and-forth between numerous mad lads and lasses on phone screens hurled in the air keeps the crowd laughing and cheering, waiting for Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers to take to the stage.

The advertised start time comes and goes as the group eventually take to the stage 15 minutes late. The crowd doesn't seem to mind however, as the band open with one of their better known songs, Romeo and Juliet, and the place loses its collective mind, screaming the lyrics back at Lopes louder than he can sing them. "I’m so sick right now, I can’t breathe on this goddamn stage... You Europeans got some weird-ass bacteria," remarks a weary but cheery Lopes and the crowd continue to go wild, to the point of rioting, as the band rip through songs from 2017's The Rise of Hobo Johnson.

Played with a heavier ferocity live compared to the record, these hip-hop tunes almost come across as punk songs, with the intensity of the music and the harsh edge to Lopes, dipping in and out of spitting and screaming. As they play Sex In the City, pints are launched throughout the crowd, as they grow ever more restless and manic. It’s around this time that things start getting messy, as a few stray cups, intentional or not, veer toward the stage, to which Lopes responds to by throwing water into the crowd. It’s not that this is done in a malicious way, but there’s certainly a portion of the audience who are getting a little, well, overexcited.

Lopes handles the crowd, good and bad, with an awkward ease, disarming any kind of cheek or chant in a harmless, funny kind of way, even telling people off at one point for trying to spark up in the middle of the show: "Stop smoking, smoking is bad… Haven't you seen the picture on your cigarettes?" he muses with a brand of wit that will certainly be a strength to him in his career. Even when dealing with a few bad apples, he's a charming man with a dynamic – albeit shy – presence.

"I was going to do a poem, but I don’t think I’m in the mindset" he tells the crowd as the show begins to wind down, but a chant of "DO IT DO IT DO IT" convinces him otherwise and he performs some of his new spoken word material, showcasing the vulnerability and realness in his writing, recalling a life spent within a broken home, with parents who were less than supportive.

While the newer cuts aren't met with the same pint-chucking excitement as the viral hits that brought the band here tonight, a raucous punk-infused version of Kelly Clarkson's Since U Been Gone – "the greatest song ever written" Lopes tells us – gets the crowd going once again before the place, predictably, goes nuts for their first viral hit Peach Scone, as pretty much all in attendance scream the darkly romantic tune at the top of their lungs.

Following this, a notably steady stream of people begin making their way to the exit as another part of the crowd chant for one more song: "Feel free to leave," Lopes remarks, "but things are about to get spicy," before ending the night with a rendition of the Alicia Keys classic If I Ain’t Got You.

There’s no getting away from it, some of the crowd were dicks tonight, and it kind of killed the overall fun vibe of the evening. Be that as it may, watching Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers, you get the impression that you're watching something special, that one day all in attendance will look back and brag that they saw Hobo Johnson in Glasgow right before he was launched into superstardom.

https://www.hobojohnson.com/