Vienna Vienna Brings His World To Life At First Ever Scottish Show
Updated: 3 days ago
Review by LiveWithLP | Lauren Page - Photography by Lynsey Wyllie
There are some artists out there that you can listen to live and listen to their recorded music and easily differentiate between the two. But with Vienna Vienna’s headline Glasgow show, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more immersed in someone’s music before.
Taking over The Garage on Sunday night for his first ever Scottish show, Vienna Vienna somehow managed to make the entire room feel like we had stepped straight inside one of his records.
Honestly, I’m still trying to work out exactly how he did it.
From the opening moments of Make a Man Out of You, everything about the show felt completely intentional. The lighting, the staging, the band, Vienna himself - it wasn’t simply a case of playing the songs we’ve all been listening to through our headphones. It felt like watching the whole world around those songs come to life.
He admitted pretty early on that he was struggling vocally and that he was going to need Glasgow to help him out. Now, asking a Glasgow crowd to sing louder is a bit like asking them if they fancy another drink - you already know what the answer is going to be.
Of course, they absolutely delivered.
Coolest Thing Alive and Idle Hands kept the opening of the set moving before Cashgrab and Sex Drugs Whatever, and it quickly became obvious just how many people inside The Garage knew every single word.
There were moments J could almost hand entire sections of songs over to the crowd and they would come straight back at him twice as loud.
If anything, the fact his voice wasn't at 100% somehow made the show even better.
There was no pretending it wasn't happening or trying to push through as though everything was fine. Instead, it became part of the night, and turned what could have been a pretty stressful first Scottish headline show into one massive singalong between Vienna and Glasgow.
But what surprised me most about seeing Vienna Vienna live was just how much bigger these songs feel on stage.
On record, there's already so much personality packed into his music. It can be chaotic, vulnerable, theatrical and ridiculously catchy - sometimes within the space of the same song. Live, all of that gets dialled up.
Company Hunting, One More Last Time, Molly and Buzz showed off that more frantic side of the set, but then songs like Monarch and Grief Is for the Living completely changed the atmosphere in the room.
That's what he does incredibly well. One minute you're in the middle of what feels like complete chaos and the next, the entire room is hanging onto every word.
By the time we reached Angel Wings, Fuck Me and Best of Me, it genuinely stopped feeling like watching someone perform an album and started feeling like being inside it.
Look, I know that sounds dramatic, but I really don't know how else to describe it.
There are shows where the production sits around the music, and then there are shows where everything seems to exist in the same world. The way Vienna moves around the stage, the band behind him, the lighting and the crowd screaming lyrics back – it all felt like an extension of the songs rather than something added to them for a tour.
Everything’s Fine was one of those moments where that really clicked.
Even with his voice struggling, J never seemed to lose control of the room. If he couldn't quite get a line out, handfuls of people were already there to finish it for him.
Then came God Save the Queens, before Beauty Queen brought his first ever Scottish show to a close.
If this was Glasgow's introduction to Vienna Vienna, I don't think it'll be the last time we see him here.
It's quite funny that going into the night, losing his voice probably felt like the worst possible thing that could happen at his first Scottish show. Yet walking out of The Garage, it almost felt like the thing that made the night.
Because Glasgow didn't just watch Vienna Vienna perform these songs.
For an hour, we got to be part of them, and that's exactly what live music should feel like.