On Wednesday evening, Boy Child and I boarded the 525 to Glasgow. Gotta love a train ride with juvenile delinquents rampaging and thinking its funny to chuck balls of wet toilet paper at folk…

Once off the train, we headed for the O2 Academy, our destination for the evening.

So, who were we off to see this time?

France’s finest metal band – Gojira!

The rail Gods were shining on us and Boy Child managed to snag me a nice wee rail spot safely to the left while I visited the merch stall. (Gojira- £40 for a t-shirt is a tad pricey….just saying)

First band on stage were Employed To Serve. Hailing from Woking, these guys are fronted by Justine Jones. While Justine’s vocal style is not really to my taste, Employed To Serve did an awesome job of getting the rapidly filling room moving. It’s not too often that the opening support act gets the mosh pit open and crowd surfers coming over by their second song. In their allotted 30 mins Employed To Serve had everyone fired up…not that this Glasgow crowd needed much encouraging. Job well done, guys!

Dull Ache Behind My Eyes – Employed To Serve @ O2 Academy Glasgow 15/02/23 – YouTube

Next on stage were a band I was excited to finally see live- Alien Weaponry. Hailing from Waipu, New Zealand, these youngsters brought something unique to the stage with their “Maori metal”. All three members of the band have Maori heritage and all bar one song on their set was performed in the Maori language.

From the opening haka at the start of Raupatu, these boys had the crowd in the palm of their hands.

Raupatu – Alien Weaponry @ O2 Academy Glasgow 15/02/23 – YouTube

Alien Weaponry stoked the energy levels in the room to even greater heights, encouraging the fans to mosh and splitting the crowd for a wall of death. From the stage they took great delight in the steady flow of surfers who were streaming over. (Security had to draft in some additional staff).

Seven songs weren’t enough. Hurry back, boys. Glasgow’s overdue a headline show!

Hatupatu – Alien Weaponry @ O2 Academy Glasgow 15/02/23 – YouTube

Around this point in the evening Boy Child disappeared off into the crowd ready to mosh through Gojira’s set. He’d been pacing himself.

It was 9.30 before the mighty Gojira stepped out on stage amidst blinding lights and swirling mist to open their ninety minute set with Born For One Thing from their current album Fortitude.

Born For One Thing – Gojira @ O2 Academy Glasgow 15/02/23 – YouTube

This was my first experience of seeing a Gojira headline show and it had been more than six years since I saw them a couple of times supporting Alter Bridge.

Right from the off, Gojira were at full speed. There was no let up in the face melting pace! True, Flying Whales gave the crowd surfers (and security) a few minutes of breathing space.

Flying Whales – Gojira @ O2 Academy Glasgow 15/02/23 – YouTube

No Gojira set would be complete without it and other firm favourites including The Cell, Silvera and L’enfant Sauvage followed.

There are no weak links in the Gojira machine. Front man Joe Duplantier is a man of few words so there’s not much conversation with the crowd.

From the rear of the stage, his brother Mario Duplantier was doing his best to “talk” to the fans at one point thanks to two handwritten signs saying “Louder!!!” and  “Here we F**king go!”. That familiar Glasgow chant interspersed the set.

By now security staff in the pit numbered more than a dozen and were working furiously to catch the constant stream of surfers, including the Pit Troll.

Towards the end of the main body of the set, Joe asked Glasgow if they had brought their singing voices. Daft question! He coached the fans through the requirements of The Chant, not they needed much coaching. The fans almost raised the roof off the O2 Academy as the silver foil confetti rained down. (Note to self- foil confetti turns the venue into a skating rink!) The Chant is one of my favourite tracks from Fortitude and live, it certainly didn’t disappoint.

(credits to the owner emmockladdie via you tube)

The Gift of Guilt rounded off the main set.

Curfew was looming so Gojira didn’t waste much time before stepping back out for a two-song encore of a song Joe said they rarely played, The Way of the Flesh followed by Amazonia. Awesomeness.

Hot, tired, sweaty and covered in silver strips, the Glasgow fans headed wearily out into the night.