Cobra Starship, Glasgow Carling Academy
They're like a darker, more intense Hellogoodbye one minute, and the next they're a swaggering bunch of hip hop-influenced yobs - bold and straight-talking.
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What are the first things that come to mind when you think 'Fall Out Boy support band'? Whiney teenagers delivering strained vocal performances, flipping their fringes every two seconds? Probably. A sombre crowd watching on silently in heartfelt emotion and earnest devotion? Most likely. But a keytar-toting, disco-loving band of sharply-dressed stunners? Maybe not. Then again, tonight Cobra Starship prove again and again that they're not quite your typical band.
"Listen", starts frontman Gabe Saporta halfway through their set. "You need to get our album. We don't care if you buy it, we don't care if you rip it off the internet... you need these songs in your life." Wait, a band placing music over money? Outrageous! The best thing is, he couldn't be more right.
Opening song 'Send My Love To The Dancefloor' is the most essential thing we've heard in ages. A fast-paced, bass-driven stormer fills the Carling Academy and sends the emo kids into a frenzy. '...Dancefloor' is tailor made for trendy sorts in indie discos, and before long the crowd are bumping and grinding like they're at a Justin Timberlake show.
The fun doesn't stop there. Cobra's most well-known track, 'Bring It (Snakes On A Plane)' - which featured on the soundtrack for Samuel L. Jackson's 'epic' - goes down in more flames than an aircraft full of reptiles. 'It's Warmer In The Basement', a dark tale of "loving your girlfriend so much that you lock her in your basement so no-one else can touch her", is so sick and twisted it's brilliant. 'The Church Of Hot Addiction', however - with its handclaps, and soaring chorus - is the real triumph of the night.
Their sound, unique as it is, is difficult to pin down and describe. They're like a darker, more intense Hellogoodbye one minute, and the next they're a swaggering bunch of hip hop-influenced yobs - bold and straight-talking, like an American Hadouken! The rhythm section churn out phrases tigher than bassist Ryland Blackinton's bright red jeans, and the pouting, strutting Victoria Asher's keytar is the cherry on top of what makes the band so distinctive.
This is before we've even started on the performance. Although the other members of the band shine in their own way, it's Saporta who makes the band glitter. 'The Church Of Hot Addiction' sees our frontman promising to show us a good time ("G.A.B.E gonna get you high""), and he delivers with conviction. Gabe Saporta is, make no mistake, more charismatic than Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz put together. Dressed in skinny jeans and a purple hoodie, he almost looks like he could be in Klaxons. Pulling shapes like some sort of indie Usher, Saporta shimmies and bounces and gang-signs his way across the stage, determined to capture our imaginations. Turns out he needn't even bother: the crowd are well and truly won over as Cobra Starship bow out, making outshining the headliner look effortless.
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