On a sweltering Sunday afternoon, Glasgow’s The Pastels played a sold out matinee gig in Byker. The band has been integral to the Scottish indie music scene, and are forever associated with the NME’s C86 cassette cult. When other bands moved to London, The Pastels stayed at home in Glasgow, combining a DIY punk aesthetic with early 60s tunes, which resulted in some gloriously off kilter pop. Opening the afternoon was Carla J Easton accompanied by guitarist Paul Kelly. Easton, previously in TeenCanteen and Poster Paints (with Simon Liddell from Frightened Rabbit), co-directed the documentary “Since Yesterday: The Unsung Pioneers Of Scottish Pop”. Barefoot on stage, the charismatic singer sang some lovely indie pop. The Pastels took to the stage to cheers as the frontman singer/guitarist Stephen McRobbie aka Stephen Pastel asked the audience “Please don’t film us, just enjoy the music.” It made a refreshing change not to have a phone in your face, obscuring the view. The band have built up a loyal following since the 80s, but they also have a new generation of younger fans in the audience (although the lead singer seemed a bit taken aback by the cheering and shouts of appreciation). Opening with ‘Wrong Light’ the band sounded great and Stephen’s distinctive vocals won us over straight away. Self-effacing and funny, he reflected on the band’s mainstream success, “Have we ever had a hit single? Have we? Yes - we have, we got to number 27 with ‘Check my Heart’!” he laughed, before playing the understated indie pop song, followed by the quietly psychedelic ‘Summer Rain’ as heads nodded in the audience. A great cover of ‘Something’s Gone’ by the Jam was also among their set-list, but my personal highlight was the quietly psychedelic ‘Baby Honey’ with its soft jangly guitars. Pre-empting the encore ("We’re not going to pretend to go off stage and come back on – with that rock mockery, we’re amongst friends and we’ll stay here – it’s a Sunday afternoon") they played ‘Coming Through’ and ‘Over My Shoulder’ and then (“This is definitely the last as we’re melting") they finished with a fantastic cover of Michael Nesbit’s ‘Different Drum’. In short this was a beautiful, warm-hearted and, yes, sweaty afternoon in Byker. And hey: we could all sometimes do with some summer rain. 

Deb Snell