Less idle more wild - Review: Idlewild at Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow

So it is with slight trepidation that I make my return to non-festival Idlewild live over 15 years later at their tenth appearance at the Barrowlands, off the back of the Scots five-piece's eighth album.

It has been 21 years since the heady heights of their exhiliratingly skewered but melodic noise punk debut Hope Is Important, one of my favourite albums by anyone and listening to their live and new album opener Dream Variations, it sounds like another band, coming over like the rump-end of unwieldy 70s prog rock with some jazz flicks.

"What’s really important about Idlewild is that we are basically punk rock kids,” said Woomble in the run up to the album, which is only occasionally that.

Live however they are a different prospect and quickly come alive.  While Woomble adopts a captivating on-stage jazz singer semi-swagger, with hands often in pocket, there is a fire in the bellies, turning even the more mature new songs into raw ferocious blockbusters.

Older gems like Roseability and Little Discourage are spitefully delivered, perhaps with even more spice than their original takes.

The breast-beating new album song Same Things Twice harks back to The Remote Part-era and combines the upbeat power of old and carries it with a more mature grace.

But there is a minor hiccup. I Almost Didn't Notice quickly follows and it is like they did not notice what went before - with a meanderingly nondescript maudlin muse and the enlightening observation that "another cup of coffee won't decaffinate my soul".

American English is the mid-paced singalong that marked the band's move away from alternative punk and it is faithfully delivered but when the first Hope Is Important gem When I Argue I See Shapes is unleashed it just lacks the venom and pace of old.

That proves just another minor hiccup, as the encore treats the crowd to magical debut album manic pop thrills Film For the Future and Everyone Says You're Fragile, attacked with all the vim and vigour that they deserve an both greeted with feral moshpits.

Even the surprise cover of Frightened Rabbit's Head Rolls Off is attacked with that traditional Idlewild urgency, that makes you believe it was their song all along.

Woomble, now 42, is no longer the guy rolling around screaming into the microphone on the floor anymore - indeed he is at his most energetic gently nodding in the sidelines while his band go wild.

But he fronts one of Scotland's finest bands, and one which retains the power to exhilirate.

I didn't walk out.