Words: Adam Parr (he/him)
Tonight is the penultimate date of the alt-pop duo Dolores Forever’s second ever headline tour, and first show in Glasgow, for their debut album It’s Nothing, which was released at the end of September this year. It is a beautiful, engaging body of work, based on the idea of someone asking ‘what’s wrong?’ and ‘it’s nothing’ being the default answer. Here, their music speaks for them instead.
Blue and purple lights flicker behind the stage as the band come on and I’m reminded of my slightly embarrassing interaction with the drummer in the queue for drinks, in which I’m not quite sure he understood my compliment on his Arsenal scarf. Then Hanna and Julia take to the stage. This is their first show in Glasgow and you can tell it won’t be their last. Instead of saving their biggest songs for the end of the setlist, they go out, all guns blazing, into the smash hit from the album, Concrete. It sets the tone for the night, and you can tell from the first note that they have full control of the eager crowd in front of them.
With a stage presence that indicates far more experience than only their second-ever headline tour suggests, and a setlist that goes from hit to hit, the band cycle through their wonderfully concise discography. Taking their first pause before the cult classic Someday Best, they start a call and response with the crowd for the hilariously addictive bridge about carb intake. Perfectly tongue and cheek, the refrain ‘shut up and eat the pasta’ commands the full attention of a crowd that you can imagine will be much bigger than the heaving attic bar where they performed today, when they return to Glasgow next time.
As we get into the body of the show, they start to play some of the older cuts from their first few singles released back in 2022, such as Conversations With Strangers and a beautiful stripped-back version of Rothko. After a profound round of applause that left the duo looking sheepishly delighted, they began introducing the band behind them: Meg on bass, and Will on drums, making sure everyone knows this is very much a team effort.
It’s apparent to all present how much performing these songs live means to the group. ‘Our headline shows give us so much’, Julia states; ‘they’re the antidote to all the other stuff; they make everything worthwhile’. Hannah adds, ‘They add a real-life angle to everything we do, which is a really beautiful experience. I just want to keep doing this thing for as long as possible’. In an era of Internet-emerging stars, for whom live performances are an afterthought, rather than the driving motivation behind their music, for Dolores Forever, a consideration of how their music will translate to a live crowd is a necessary part of their songwriting process.
This becomes prevalent in the last couple songs of the set. The existential crisis of a song Why Are You Not Scared Yet? manages to be both a song about the hopelessness of society as we know it, cheating lovers, and climate change, and yet still a moving sing-along. As they yell ‘it’s all downhill from here!’, and let the crowd recite back ‘why are you not scared yet!’ with each hook, it creates a buzz in the air I haven’t felt at a concert in a long long time.The final track of the show, and opening track of the album, Not Now Kids, is a song that encapsulates the ironic mantra of the album title. ‘Tell me why; not now kids the grown-ups are talking’ describes the refusal to answer a question that really requires much more depth than is willing to be given. But this performance left nothing to be desired. The band was cheered off the stage so emphatically they couldn’t help but almost collapse into each other’s arms the second they left the stage. Even after this stunning performance, the pair spent the rest of the evening chatting with the concert goers at the merch table, topping off a beautiful mood-lifting night
