LIVE REVIEW: PUP, Illuminati Hotties, Goo, SWG3 TV Studio, Glasgow, 11/05/2025
Photo Credit: Martyna Wisniewska
On a warm balmy Sunday night what more could you want than a night of punk rock from Canadians PUP? As the young pups queued patiently to gain entry to see Brad Simpson & Nieve Ella, we headed straight into the SWG3 TV Studio and Goo soon took to the stage, the pop-punk band are relatively new on the scene with the band from Keighley, Yorkshire played a satisfying half-hour set mostly from the six-track EP release in 2023 Chomp. Vocalist Tanisha Badman has great self-confidence and commands the stage perfectly while Sam Drury is providing extra entertainment with his explosive guitar solos with his hair flapping about in true grunge style, Call In Sick and De Nero were the pick of the very entertaining set. We are quite sure we saw the guitarist and bass player crowd surfing during the PUP set later! 8/10
We were excited to be seeing Illuminati Hotties for the first time tonight and even though they were the support act we would get an incredible fourteen tracks during the set from the Californians, so they could easily have been the headliners! They recently released a song in collaboration with PUP – Wreck My Life – to coincide with the European and UK tour and they would sing this one together tonight with the PUP vocalist with Stefan Babcock joining Sarah Tudzin and band on stage. There was even a birthday cake appearing on the stage as Stefan encouraged the crowd to join in wishing Sarah a happy birthday … the full room obliged. Illuminati Hotties may not be a name that everyone at tonight’s show would recognise but if you dig deeper you would find that Tudzin won a Grammy for producing a boygenius album and has worked with so many massive bands on the production side of things. Now on their third album after the release of the Power album last year they played a good mixture from all three albums alongside recent release 777, the crowd are right up for this one with the highlights for us being opener Can’t Be Still, The L, MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA and last track Didn’t. We really hope to see Illuminati Hotties back on these shores real soon. The energy in the hall is now highly-charged as we awaited PUP. 9/10
The band name PUP is an abbreviation of Pathetic Use of Potential, there wasn’t much in the way of being pathetic tonight though as the Toronto punk quartet stormed the Glasgow crowd with a breath-taking 21-track setlist taking the fans through songs from their five album releases to date including seven from latest release Who Will Look After The Dogs? Kicking off with two from that very album that was only released on 2nd May, any concerns about whether the fans had enough time to learn the new songs were soon dispersed as they had the place bouncing from openers No Hope and Olive Garden. There was an early contender for the best of the night in My Life Is Over And I Couldn’t Be Happier, the PUP crowds are known for causing mayhem and tonight is no different as vocalist Stefan Babcock teases and fires them up, we wondered before they took to the stage if it being a Sunday night would impact the energy in the crowd … not a chance! The mosh pits and crowd surfing was soon underway and the euphoria among the crowd is wild, we haven’t saw such energy at a Sunday night gig at SWG3 so hats off to the Glasgow crowd for brining their A game tonight.
As well as the new songs the Do It 2025 Tour takes the fans on a journey back to previous releases such as Morbid Stuff with tracks Free At Last and Full Blown Meltdown being two of the standouts and not forgetting The Dream Is Over Album with DVP and If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will taking the energy to another level. Zach and Jake from Illuminati Hotties join Stefan and co. on the stage for a jam during Paranoid, these two guys are the real deal with even Stefan recognising their talent. We are down the front but just on the outer reaches of the mayhem ensuing in the middle of the crowd, the security are earning their wages tonight, that’s for sure! As we almost reach the end of the set Sarah Tudzin joins the band on stage to duet on Reservoir with Stefan and this drives the crowd wild one last time with another rendition of happy birthday thrown in for those that missed it earlier. There is only one thing left to see during last track Full Blown Meltdown and it is the bold frontman Stefan diving into the crowd for a crowd surf ending a mind-blowing night of music that will live long in the memory, it really was that good. 10/10
The nine-date UK tour finished up at the O2 Forum Kentish Town on 16th May before moving on to Europe for more dates. Catch them if you can. 9/10
Written by: Alan Brown
