The Summer Set

By Claire White

The Summer Set made their UK debut on this years OurZone tour and the band’s highly anticipated set at the Glasgow O2 ABC on May 25th certainly didn’t disappoint.

Before the band entered the stage, the crowd were in high spirits. Chanting and screaming awaiting the band’s appearance. The band opened with track ‘Young’ from the band’s full-length album ‘Love Like This’, a great opening song choice as it managed to warm-up the excited young crowd immediately from the first chord played. The track sounded just as it does on the band’s album and vocals from front-man Brian Logan Dales were just as strong live as they were recorded.

Another powerful track was second in the bands set with ‘The Boys You Do’, as the crowd clapped along joining in and singing along unaided by the band. Despite it only being the band’s second song, the crowd were in the full gig spirit and the band bonded together on stage with ease, as you could easily see from their faces that they are doing what they love. There is a strong bond also visible between the band and the crowd, as both are smiling and dancing around, singing the words back at each other.

The band during their set also introduced the crowd to two new tracks. With both, despite the crowd not knowing them, they were still dancing along with no encouragement needed. It was during these tracks you could also notice the stage presence the band managed to contain, especially from Brian Logan Dales as he used the whole stage interacting with every section of the audience and encouraging the crowd to move even more.

Other highlights from the bands album ‘Girls Freak Me Out’ and ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ again showcased the bands full potential to keep the audience engaged. There was full crowd interaction splitting the crowd in two to sing certain sections to which the crowd fully co-operated. Both tracks again were just as on the band’s EP and the crowd were fully engaged.

With an acoustic song ‘Where Are You Now’ in the set this managed to showcase the bands strong vocal talent. This time it also gave backup vocalist and guitarist John Gomez his moment to shine and he didn’t fail to deliver strong powerful vocals which led to applause from the crowd. The band explained that they do not get to play this track live a lot, yet with it’s strength it cannot go unnoticed. This song also contained a transition from the full acoustic feeling to containing more electric guitar and drums, which was a flawless move and worked well in the song showcasing the band’s instrumental versatility and talent.

The strongest two songs in the band’s set were ‘Love Like This’ and ‘Chelsea’. Both tracks had the whole audience singing and dancing along, cheering and screaming for more. The band displayed full energy from the moment they stepped on the stage, to the moment they left as they bounced around encouraging the Glasgow crowd to get involved.

Overall, The Summer Set did not disappoint on their first trip to Glasgow. The band projected high energy from the start to the end of their set and sounded just as on their album as they did live. They had strong vocals from both lead and back-up vocalists and put on a perfect mix of songs to introduce them to the UK audience. The only down-side to the line-up in general was that as it was their debut UK tour, it seems that the band aren’t on a tour that manages to showcase their full potential. As there were so many other unknown bands on the line-up, it would seem that if The Summer Set were given a longer set and less support bands, the full strong potential of this band would have been seen by many more. Hopefully with the taster of the set the UK have been treated to The Summer Set will make a return to the UK on their own headline tour in the near future.

You can buy The Summer Set’s record now by clicking here!