November 3, 2024

Screaming fans and sound failures: Lany have a mixed night at King Tuts

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After Lany supported Ellie Goulding in March this year, they returned to Glasgow with their very own tour.

Lany play a mixture of 1980s FM Pop, early 1990s R&B and electronica love songs.

They came together in 2014 and consist of Paul Klein (lead vocals/keyboard/guitar) Les Preist (Keys/guitar/vocals) and Jake Goss (drums).

The type of music Lany play was reflected in the fact that most of their fans at King Tuts were young women, some of them had managed to drag their boyfriends along.

Lany’s fan base has certainly strengthened, they had 200 something turn up, many regaled in Lany t-shirts.

When Lany appeared on stage it was to a scream fest which tuned into the signature chant, “here we…here we….here we fuckin go!”

Paul and Les started the show with their backs to the fans. The loved up fans went wild waiting for their heart throb Paul to turn round and give them his full attention. When he did, the screams reached another level.

The screams faded as the first song 4EVER! began to play. The crowd sang along, they knew every word. Unfortunately Paul seemed to be struggling with his ear piece. He was singing loudly then quietly and distorted. The band started a funky clap, the crowd joined in. Les, too, was having technical difficulties. He pointed to his guitar. Paul pointed to his ear and shook his head at the sound booth. It was becoming clear that Paul couldn’t hear his guitar; he kept turning his back to the crowd whilst he tried to fix it.

After 4EVER! was finished Paul called out through his mic “one two check can you hear this?” The crowd went wild, just for the fact that they could hear Paul talk. He hit the first two bars of the next song ‘Yea, Babe, No Way’ and the crowd instantly joined in. Whether it was the loudness of the crowd or the mic problems,it was difficult to hear much of Paul until the chorus kicked in.

Inbetween songs Paul spoke to his adoring fans. “Hello can you hear me? Listen I’m doing my absolute best. I’m getting a shock every time my lips hit this microphone. So can you hear me during the song?” The crowd replied in unison “Yeaaaahhhh!”. Paul replied “Listen so we’re from America so all of our like electronics are different so I dunno… we are doing our absolute best does it sound ok?” The crowd screamed once again. Drawing his eyes towards the sound engineer, still shaking his head and pointing to his ear, he started ‘Where The Hell Are My Friends’.

On to the next song and still Paul complained that he couldn’t hear his guitar. The crowd were really feeling for him. One fan swore out “Fix it for him!”. Another girl beside me shouted “Oooh! He’s no happy at all”. Still another called “We will wait for it get it fixed!”

Just to add to their woe half-way through the gig one band member managed to knock the sampling machine over!

Paul moved over to the keyboard, gesturing at it to the sound engineer, and started to sing ‘Bad Bad Bad’ whilst leaning over the bars and into the screaming crowd. He told the crowd to sing the tune if they knew it, and hell yeah, did they know it!

By this point Lany were getting into their flow. Whilst Paul played the keyboard, he banged his head up and down, his necklace floated back and forth, and he called out, “Come on Glasgow here we go!” He moved into the crowd, the fans had their phones out capturing their idol. He hi-fived one girl who screamed the place down.

At the end of the gig Lany apologised to their fans knowing things had been far from perfect. The fans seemed to think it was pretty perfect though.

I interviewed these boys at the start of the year and know what passion they have for pleasing their following. The question I would want answered is who was in charge of the sound test?

I’d never question Lany’s ability to please the crowd with their songs and hope their tour also grows from strength to strength just like their fans.

Lany played King Tuts Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow on 30th August 2016.

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