Young Fathers @ City Park, Stirling, 29 Jun

Ambling through Stirling early on Saturday evening, it’d be easy to assume that there was little of note happening that night. Under the gaze of Stirling Castle, however, two of the UK’s most electrifying and impressive live acts front an evening of live music that feels nascent; incipient in organisation, so much so that the venue ground feels underpopulated, almost liminal. It seems that between Glastonbury being in full swing down in Somerset, and acts such as Mogwai and Nadine Shah playing an event format of a similar ilk just down the road in Glasgow, that the target audience is somewhat split between the plethora of offerings on this particular Saturday in June. The space feels box fresh, unused and unopened, even the festival ground facilities are (seriously) clean. Bar set-ups are manned only to half-capacity, yet there are no queues. 

Chicago hip-hop artist Noname is the first act we settle in for, and truthfully isn’t given the audience buy-in she deserves. Some rhythmic issues on the first couple of songs, as well as a naive attempt to teach the crowd the full chorus to 2019’s Song 32 don’t dissuade this performer-audience atmosphere, though favour is gained when she shares her opinion on some questionable superstars ("Fuck Jay-Z, fuck Diddy") and is vocal about her support to a Free Palestine, her socialist belief system and disdain of billionaires.

A brief reprieve onstage sees the crowd move towards the bar, allowing for an almost-too-easy shuffle to the front barrier, before the sparse stage production for Self Esteem is moved in; a drum kit, paper plastered over the bass drumhead with neon green gaffer tape simply stating ‘Closed for Renovation’. Self Esteem, otherwise known as Rebecca Lucy Taylor, who completed touring breakout album Prioritise Pleasure last year, means it: this is only one of two calendar gigs the lauded stage presence is set to play in 2024.

Taking to the stage with her team of multipurpose backing singers/dancers and drummer, we're quick to notice that each of them are dressed in matching grey New Balance gear, prepped for a rehearsal rather than a show, or, more likely, amidst ‘renovation’ between album cycles. The spartan physical display does not bear relevance, as Self Esteem and co. are as full-throated and solemn as ever, Taylor’s vocals wrenching and at full power.

We're treated to a run-through of much of what made Prioritise Pleasure shows great: conversational, self-baring verses amidst soaring, harmonised hooks. I Do This All the Time and You Forever sound as fresh as they did upon release, pared back staging not taking from the comforting emotional blasts that both songs’ final choruses crescendo into. It feels very much like there is no pressure here, Taylor and co are beaming throughout (Taylor’s recent bike injury – a scabbed leg – in full display as a bravely displayed war wound) and at their absolute best, in a set so dazzling you’d be happy if they were the headliners. New material is proffered with the live debut of the Moonchild Sanelly-assisted Big Man, all bass, snap, gusto and singalong. Mother, a song debuted during the I Tour This All the Time run of shows, is hurled at the audience, a significantly beefed-up (and dare I say, ‘single-ready’?) mix compared to first hearing the song last March; electronic, camp and massive.

Image: Young Fathers @ City Park, Stirling, 29 Jun

Little time passes between Self Esteem’s exit and Young Fathers’ triumphant stage ascension, which happens as if through a television set; sepia hued from orange side-lighting, the band’s set up overlaying a burnt, trodden canvas. They are their own microcosm, and while you are invited to watch, even interact, the space is now theirs.

Any concerns over a light crowd are now assuaged as, over 75 minutes, they deliver a performance that is utterly singular, commonly heralded right now as the UK’s best live band, and with very good reason. Young Fathers’ choruses are anthemic, cathartic chants of affirmation, anger or unity and, regardless of desired effect, they always drive their intended sentiment home, like a sledgehammer to the temple.

Opener The Queen Is Dead is testament to this, the song’s title carried on the voices of City Park’s audience over the looming castle above and outward. Set staple Get Up drives the crowd as it visibly undulates, where softer moments like Geronimo give the audience room for pause and sentiment; Edinburgh-based poet and The Skinny contributor Jj Fadaka is beamed on-screen from the audience, hands in a love heart formation. A tonal smash cut to Shame, prefixed with a chant of ‘Fuck the Tories, Free Palestine!’ offered by Graham 'G' Hastings is paid-in-kind as loudly as any of their rapturous choruses.

It isn’t just Hastings that captures attention, as Young Fathers is ever a sum of its parts: Kayus Bankole, intense glare transfixed on the audience, snakes between the members, joined by rotating backing vocalist Kimberley Mandindo (herself shining on the primal Ululation), all four vocalists lapping and weaving between the others, separate but whole at all times.

The surging heave of their hooks on catalogue hits – I Heard, In My View, Drum, Rice – are played to an audience euphoric on the brilliance of experiencing this music live, reaching their zenith by the time of the atmospheric entry into Toy. This drives home a set that is transient in length, but explosive in impact, the barefaced brilliance of Alloysious Massaquoi’s quieted repetition of the song's refrain a stoic musing amidst the band’s barnstorming closer that sees the drum kit hurled across the stage. This climax all but confirms Young Fathers’ power: each at different temperatures, different dispositions, but coalescing as an ephemeral whole that is biblical in its sheer emotion. No one in a live setting will convince you more of their right to be there at this moment than Young Fathers.