After a short wait, in the extremely large cue, and lots of ticket blokes shouting for spare tickets, buy and sell, the worst secuirity guards ever, the infamous QMU team, finally opened the doors. The bad thing was, once we were in, all we got for around 45 minutes was, first up, a funk tune, and then the rest of the music being played was dub shite, which as you could guess did grow very old after the first song or so. But eventually three faint figures can be seen patroling the stage, and as most people thought it was time for Face To Face, but it was otherwise.

I knew personally that there was no Face To Face on the night, as the Glasgow date was not on their web site, and in the cue, I was told off my friend that reads NME that Saves The Day were supporting, which at the time I thought was bullshit, and in the end it was, but it did say that in NME. But the support turned out to be the Snowdogs, a three piece pop-punk band, with a slight dab of rock and roll thrown in for show, and all in all, they were pretty distinctive, for a modern day pop-punk band. From the very start of their set they seem to be on top form, playing a fairly decent sounding blend of songs, and very much satisfying the crowd. One thing I noticed about the Snowdogs, was that the drummer very much resembled Zakk Wylde (metal guitarist guy, anyone who knows who he is, check out the Snowdogs drummer) and really didn't fit in, appearence wise anyway, with the rest of the band. But although the crowd is into the Snowdogs, they are only here to see one band, and that of course was Alkaline Trio. So at the end of their very long, for a support band slot, of almost 40 minutes, Snowdogs announce they will sign stuff at the merch desk, and they actually got a surprisingly large amount of people out to meet them, and that was the end of their set, which was all in all, fairly decent and they got a good enough crowd reception.

So after another while of dub and other various QMU nonsense, the stage lights finally went on, and drummer Dereck, and bassist Dan, can be seen walking out onto the stage, and then closely followed by new look Matt Skiba, with his devil lock-esque hair cut. They introduced themselves and then played a very well performed, and bad opener, of Stupid Kid, which was the last song that I though they would've opened with, but the crowd don't seem to care as the whole 1000 capacity is bouncing in unison along to it. After the opener, they announce to us that they haven't slept in about two days, and talk about how Matt has banged his head many times on the bus. And then continue the set, playing Mr Chainsaw next, and then followed by one of my favourite Alkaline Trio songs, Take Lots With Alcohol, which is the first song of the night which Dan sang. As far as vocals for the show went, both of the guys were lacking from then on, as Matt keeps fucking up the high notes, which he could handle any other time, and Dan keeps on howling meaninglessley into the mic, which is quite ear-numblingly dodgy. But no matter what the vocal form the crowd still seem to be loving it, and I didn't even realise how wild the crowd was till I came back to the bar to take a break for a while. The set went on, mixing old songs, mainly from 'Goddamit', and also new songs from their latest album, 'From Here To Infirmary', but no matter what they play, Dan continues on with his howling, and Matt with his screeching. They pack up the night with, firstly, 'Crawl' which was one of the only songs sang to cd quality by Dan, and then 'Bleeder'. But after just talking off their guitars, and whatever, they walk back onto the stage, and announce that they're going to play a couple more. So off they went about to play their latest single Private Eye, and it turns out that Dan hadn't turned his bass amp on, when he blatentey had done, because you could hear the bass. But anyway, now comes Prvate Eye 2, and this time Matt broke a string on his guitar, and then at the third attempt, they finally got it all going perfectly, and it got what was probably the best atmosphere of the night, as it was probably what drew in most of the people here. One thing about Matt, in my opinion, is that he uses the ugliest guitar ever, the black one with the red scratch plate, and he should've kept the one he changed it for when he broke the string, but he got it changed half way through the song. And then, the song I had been waiting for the most, My Friend Peter, which I was hoping they'd open with, but finishing with it was still amazing, and it brighted up my view on the gig so far a little bit. The only thing was, the Snowdogs had played for the same length of time, if not longer, which just shouldn't happen, but they did say they were tired, and if they really hadn't slept in two days, then it was understandable!

Overall, the gig was nothing too special, I thought they were much better at the Cathouse in December, when you were allowed to crowd surf, and pit without getting it broken up by an ill-educated secuirity guard. The only major things that Alkaline Trio missed were 'Radio', 'Armaggedon', and 'Bloodied Up', had they of played that on top of what hey did play, it would've been somewhat better. Rock on next time!

- Click here, for a review of 'From Here To Infirmary'

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