Embrace

Embrace love Scotland and Scotland love Embrace; it’s a rather handy trade-off that keeps both parties happy. Consequently the band decided that they loved the country so much they would embark on a tour consisting of a series of tiny little Scottish dates. One of which was Stirling Albert Hall, famous for putting on such live acts as The Strathclyde Police Pipe Band and The North’s best belly dancing exhibition.

Embrace were often seen as one of the more average bands of the 90’s, criticised for Danny McNamara’s occasional vocal inaccuracy and their position as an under par Oasis. However, it’s easy to see how they’ve managed to rekindle their fame when their live presence is as captivating as it was today.



Embrace gigs often produce a sense of cathartic collectiveness, whereby McNamara’s vocals are often overshadowed by the bellowing chorus of the over enthusiastic audience. It’s certainly easy to get wrapped up in Embrace’s tenderly created ballads that predictably swoon towards uplifting key changes and climatic instrumentals.

Although a significant proportion of their latest material sounds like the runners-up of your village pub karaoke competition, Embrace are irritatingly good live. No matter how hard you try and resist their embarrassingly clichéd indieness it’s impossible not to get caught up in the resounding atmosphere engendered by tonight’s gig.

Bearing in mind the feeling of collectiveness that Embrace songs seem to induce, it’s hardly surprising that the band have been picked to write England’s World Cup song; the admittedly rather dodgy titled ‘World at your feet’. Perhaps they decided not to play this song because of Scotland’s premature exit from the World Cup.

Embrace used The Albert Hall to give ‘Glorious Day’ its first performance back in 2004, sticking with tradition they debuted ‘Celebrate’ from their third number one album ‘This new day’, which constituted much of tonight’s set.

Hardly surprising but Embrace’s latest single the insipid ‘Natures Law’ had previously reached number one in Scotland, compared to the number two position it managed in the UK charts. It was one of those mobile phones in the air moments.



Embrace seem to rely on their earlier material to increase the tempo of the set which is a bit of a shame. None of the new songs have the same punch as ‘Every Adam every Eve’ or ‘Save Me’. Still, with songs that anthemic it seems unlikely Embrace will be omitting them from the set list any time soon.

Just in case you didn’t realise how much Embrace love Scotland they added in a mention that the best ever gig they did was at last years T in the Park where the reception they received was nothing short of phenomenal.

The set was rounded off with an encore consisting of ‘Ashes’, ‘Wonder’ and the title track from their 1998 album ‘The Good Will Out’. A great gig and if you ever do get the chance to see Embrace I suggest you try seeing them in one of Scotland’s intimate venues; it really is worth it.

FUTURE GIGS