Sultans of Ping FC – Saint Luke’s & The Winged Ox, Glasgow

Great name for a venue – probably a long way to go for one gig though! It was a 5 hour drive from my new location in mid Wales, although it’s always nice to have a bit of a road trip and see a few places. We got to stop at Newton-le-Willows and Moffat, towns I’ve walked through before, plus I visited the legendary Tebay services for the first time.

Big gig night for me too as it was my 25th Sultans gig – the only band I’ve seen 25 times. Nearest contenders are Carter USM on 24 and Abdoujaparov on 20 – and coincidentally, said hello to Les Carter who was at tonight’s show.

As you can see, this show is celebrating 30 years of Casual Sex in the Cineplex, an album they released 32 years ago. They did play 11 songs from that album (they never play Clitus Clarke) and 10 others, although that made it pretty much the same setlist from last year’s gig in Manchester.

It was a good gig – but not one of their best, maybe because the crowd seemed to be really flat. I thought it might be a bit more raucous being in Glasgow, particularly after the madness of some other recent gigs, like Birmingham in 2022 which was the maddest show I had seen in years.