T in the Park: Glasvegas have arrived

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Every festival has at least one - a band that blows up just before the weekend arrives so that their stage draw is underestimated - and T in the Park 2008's was Glasvegas. We arrived at the mid-sized Futures Tent for their early evening Saturday show a full 20 minutes before it was due to start, and the stewards were already closing it off; we just managed to sneak in, while desperate others were charging and climbing fences. The atmosphere was just incredible, with thousands of fans heartily singing along to every word of every song - even though this is a band whose discography stretches to just one full single release. They started with Flowers and Football Tops, remaining impressively calm despite the bedlam going on before them - arms flailing, girls on shoulders, hugging, waving, cheering, screaming - so at times it was difficult to even make out the music. Meanwhile, hundreds were standing outside, crushing against barriers and stewards, desperate to hear or catch sight of their new heroes. It doesn't take much to get T revellers to chant "Here we fucking go!" but Go Square Go got thousands belting it out with gusto. Of course, the closer was Daddy's Gone, which already has the feel of a classic festival anthem that will be sung here for years to come; but never will it go down as well as here, tonight. This was a real landmark performance in the career of Scotland's favourite new band.

The Skinny caught up with drummer Caroline and guitarist Rab after the gig. "The best gig and the best crowd that we've ever played to", Rab beamed, still clearly overwhelmed by the experience. "I expected it to be busy but not quite like that. Our tour manager came on-stage halfway through and said to ask the crowd to calm down. People couldn't get in and then they rammed through the barriers, so they were gonna pull the gig". Caroline said "We've gone around the country and had the most amazing response everywhere we've went, and we're so thankful for that. But you cannae beat that. It was absolutely amazing". Rab also confessed that the band had decided not to headline the stage: "We said no because it's quite early still, we've only brought out one single -although we've done the limited editions - and our album's not out until September. As a band we all said it's too soon"

Rab and Caroline also spoke about the Christmas album the band hope to release at the end of this year. "It's definitely happening" Rab said, "It's all written. He [James Allan, singer] wrote it all in New York when we did the album. It's pretty fucking special to be honest. One of the songs is called Cruel Moon and I think it's the best song he's ever wrote. I get hairs on the back of my neck every time I listen to it. We were gonna put it on the album and I was gutted that we didn't, but I understand it's more suited for the Christmas album. So we're gonna go to Romania, Transylvania, and record it in a big church, live, and maybe get some other people to sing on it. The record company is really excited about it, a second album in a year!

But after that quick burst of creativity, that might be it as far as the Glasvegas story goes. "I don't know if we're going to do a second [studio] album," Rab said. "And the record company knows that. They're genuine and they're really into the music. They won't force us to do anything. So if we say we don't want to do a second, they'd be fine with that".