NEWS: Mogwai @ Sage Gateshead

Image by Antony Crook

Mogwai surely require no introduction in 2023, and if you’re reading this with interest it’s a fair bet you’ll already have ticked them off your live bucket list. Most of you, then, won’t need reminding of the extraordinary crescendos and barrelling sonic assaults the post-rock goliaths summon on-stage – yet with finances tight and so many great gigs on offer, it’s not unreasonable to ask why we should bother this time around…

Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, these shows mark a belated victory lap after the Scots’ most recent album, As The Love Continues, enjoyed an unlikely surge to the summit of the UK Album Chart. Secondly, they’ve enlisted an absolute howitzer of a support act in cult indie noisemakers Brainiac. Bar a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reunion in 2019, these dates are the Ohio band’s first since 1997, and their premature dissolution following the sudden passing of vocalist Tim Taylor. And then there’s Stuart Braithwaite’s own pitch, with the guitarist promising the current tour will be Mogwai’s last for “quite a while” (“nothing ominous… but if you want to see us play, this is the last chance for a bit…”).
Of course, if you haven’t yet experienced the awesome power, absorbing beauty and face-melting volume of a Mogwai live show, these are merely extra fillips. You know you want to!

Mogwai and Brainiac play Sage Gateshead on Sunday 12^th February.