Warmduscher @ Classic Grand, Glasgow, 19 May

Within three minutes of San Jose’s set, lead singer Calum Grant is shirtless and crawling through the crowd, Gollum-like. Running from Queen Street station, we arrive to a crowd split down the middle, a half-naked Grant in the centre like we’re five hours into a sweaty set, hips grooving, shoes off, toes pointed. San Jose perform like they’re singing to the already converted. The Glasgow-based six-piece offer a sound matched in its intensity by a visceral performance, blurring the boundary between artist and audience.

After pouring tendrils of Tennent's onto an open-mouthed audience member, Grant aggressively slams the can against his bare chest in line with a screeching guitar riff. Sometimes theatrics can feel contrived, but there’s a sense of possession here. “This one’s about the Jonestown Massacre,” he smirks, before crawling into the crowd, prowling among us; eye contact determined and desperate. He slinks back towards the stage but not before launching himself at someone and, like a detonator, a pit erupts. It’s like he commanded an order. I remember the Jonestown comment and wonder if Grant’s intro was a warning. Glasgow has drunk the Kool-Aid. It’s only a matter of time before the fervour spreads.

Image: San Jose @ Classic Grand, Glasgow, 19 May by Dale Harvey

Answering the sermon-like energy of San Jose’s feverish performance, Warmduscher arrive on stage through a billowing haze and choral backing, an apparition. Except this preacher – lead singer Clams Baker – is more lighthearted, more catholic pageantry than protestant zeal.

Baker launches into his iconic talk-style singing which almost acts as another form of percussion, driving the band’s underlying groove. They slip into fan favourite Midnight Dipper early, a song which encapsulates the group; their sound, history and general atmosphere. Formed spontaneously in 2014 at a house party, Warmduscher are a Frankenstein's concoction of sounds and influences, stitched together from various other musical projects, including cult band Fat White Family (Lias Saoudi) and electronic unit Paranoid London (Baker and Quinn Whalley). This sonic eclecticism is reflected in Baker’s performance that oscillates between intense eye contact and mosh-encouragement to reluctant rockstar, complete with black aviator sunglasses.

Across the pit, a guy looks at me and yells, “Forget moshing, I want to dance!” This seems to encapsulate the energy of the night. Warmduscher are here to create a party. Despite the heavier nature of their lyrics and grittiness of topics, covering class, inequality, and the modern day dissonance of a desperate kind of ennui, Warmduscher’s live performances are dedicated to creating a good time. The dancefloor isn’t dead, it’s in the pit. Baker repeatedly thanks the crowd for being here, saying “we know how much these tickets cost, thank you,” echoing a sentiment expressed in an interview with The Quietus back in 2015: “When you give someone that paid money to watch you perform everything you have, you get something more than a good time; you get respect.”

As the band effortlessly slide from the balledesque 1000 Whispers into the funk-filled Cleopatras, Baker climbs into the crowd, weaving himself and the microphone wire amongst us, and we find ourselves thinking about AI in music. While AI might be able to produce a musical sound which approximates something of Warmduscher’s eclecticism, it can’t translate that into live performance, and the exchange of energy that takes place there. The song echoes this sentiment: ‘Your energy is what we want’. Tonight, it’s willingly given.

Throughout the set, and especially for the pre-encore (I Got Friends), Baker adopts the persona, maybe accidentally, of a proud dad. There’s an undercurrent of joviality to him, like he can’t quite contain the fun, the silliness of it, the thrashing serious silliness. And maybe that’s the allure of a band like Warmduscher in today’s kaleidoscopic media and emotional environment – they embrace this dichotomy. They are seriously unserious. They orchestrate a space for both to exist – the groovy and the angry, the levity to the severity, the comedy and the tragedy – and we’re caught in the synthesis.