Mogwai

MOGWAI

Red Box, Dublin

Well, you can’t dance to them. Big, singalong choruses aren’t really their thing either. And the only movement on stage comes when they move from standing still to sitting down. So what do you actually do at a Mogwai gig?

Looking around a stuffed Red Box (initial plans to stage the gig in the less orthodox Guinness Hopstore having being thwarted by strike action) the answer to the first question would seem to be, well sort of sway a bit, stare at the lights or just sit at the back with your eyes closed.

This is first and foremost a sonic experience, one of quite staggering beauty and power. Having noodled around for the first couple of minutes of the set, the moment when the Glaswegian five piece hit their opening chords is electric, sweeping a wave of excitement through the room.

For a band operating outside of the established musical boundaries, they actually prove what an exciting and expansive beast this rock thing really

is. In their hands the basic drums, bass and guitar format (plus a brief appearance from a string quartet and some knob twiddling) is transformed into something so astonishing, so mindbending that the Scots are – although they’d probably hate it – quite probably music’s saviours. Mogwai - the last of the rock action heroes.