There are always a few drawbacks to being a support act. For Allie X, the biggest issue was simply finding space to stand onstage, with so much ground already filled with covered up props for the night’s headliners. Still, she made a good effort with what she had, working the crowd well, and the clattering electro-pop of “Super Duper Party People” and a wickedly noisy “Off With Her Tits” carried enough verve by themselves that no stage craft was needed.
Magdalena Bay had plenty of those songs too, but accompanied them with a stage décor that appeared to be aiming for the stars, or the moons. Rocky outcroppings dotted the surroundings in the manner of an old science fiction b-movie, while the constant stream of backing videos were blasted out via a couple of props that – depending on your angle – looked suited either to summoning creatures from another dimension or answering the question of who the fairest of them all is.
Such a cosmic backdrop worked well alongside the duo’s singer, Mica Tennenbaum. Guitarist/keyboardist Matthew Lewin may have received wild cheering whenever he stepped forward for a solo, but the front of the stage was mostly Tennenbaum’s to work, from contorting atop monitors to donning a variety of outfits, masks and, at one stage, a sunflower costume. It was a fairly unrelenting barrage of visual ideas, striking and occasionally overwhelming.
A similar varied approach danced across the music too. Like so much pop now, there is a kaleidoscopic style here, shifting between genres eagerly. Their best work tended to be when leaning into a poppier side, with an early double-header of “Image” – all skittish, funky rhythms – and the Prince style strut of “Secrets” a vibrant combination. When it worked, the mixture of the music and the onstage theatrics felt genuinely transformative, as on the stomp, sashay and sing-a-long of “Tunnel Vision”, which climaxed with Tennenbaum donning a mask, and the grandiose pop hook fuelling “Death and Romance”.
Where the duo – joined onstage by drummer Nick Villa and extra guitarist/keyboardist Myles Sweeney – were less convincing was when they focused on noise over anything else, such as the droning “Nice Day” and the generic cries of “That’s My Floor”, songs where the sheer amount going on couldn’t disguise the fact little of it was actually interesting.
Of equal concern was that such a slick spectacle also carried with it a feeling of being too smooth at times. A lone dedication to Scotland aside, there was nothing from either Tennenbaum or Lewin to root the gig among us, to make it feel not just communal but something unique to this night in Glasgow. Ironically, given the space age setting, a human touch would have been welcome at points.
Still, the thrills outweighed such concerns, from the zippy dancefloor groove of “Chaeri” to the pared back quasi ballad of “Angel on A Satellite”. The encore rounded things off with the straightforward bop of “The Beginning”, but it was the preceding “Second Sleep” – all ethereal noise and a terrific Tennenbaum vocal – that lingered longer in the mind.
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