BIG THIEF BACK IN GLASGOW: TEARS, DANCING AND JOY

LIVE REVIEW | BIG THIEF w/ ATA KAK | BARROWLAND BALLROOM, GLASGOW | 30th May 2026 by Bryden Churchmichael

A few minutes before Big Thief came on, Ata Kak walked back out on his own and shouted “WHO’S READY FOR BIG THIEF” at the room. He’d earned it. His own set had a Big Thief crowd actually dancing, moving, which doesn’t always happen for a support act, and by the time he came back out the room was his.

Ata Kak (Yaw Atta-Owusu) of Kumasi, Ghana, made a cassette in the early 90s that put highlife, hip-hop and funk in a blender and then vanished. Nobody heard it. Some years later, it got dug back up and reissued in 2015 and now here he is in the Barrowlands, warming a Glasgow crowd for an indie folk band from Brooklyn. If you’d told me that’s how the night started I’d not have believed you. It worked. That’s the thing. It absolutely worked.

Then Big Thief opened on Masterpiece and the room screamed.

First three songs from the pit, and I’ve never been that close to a band this size in a room this size. The Barrowlands, my favourite venue going. Masterpiece into Simulation Swarm into Muscle Memory, no gap in the noise the whole way through, clapping, shouting, no breath in it. Close enough to clock the rip in Adrianne Lenker‘s jeans and the spread of pedals at her feet. She shuts her eyes when she plays. Goes somewhere.

Behind her James Krivchenia going at the kit in a leopard cap, mouth open, properly into it. Joshua Crumbly off to the side on bass, quieter, locked in, a wee smile to himself. And I catch Adrianne’s reflection up on the roof, that ceiling, swaying.

Then the three songs are up and you come off the pit into the crowd, and there’s a stretch I half-lost. Shark Smile, Mr. Man, Where Will We Go. Me and the other photographer I had met outside before just stood there gathering ourselves, taking in the fact we were actually here, and those three went by in a bit of a daze. Shark Smile was beautiful. I couldn’t tell you much more than that and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

And then Los Angeles, and the camera went down. I used to sing this one to myself in the glass house at the bottom of the garden, late, when there wasn’t much else going on. Before any of this. Before I wrote a word. And here it is filling the Barrowlands and I’m stood at the side next to another photographer who’d put her camera down too, and we just danced, and I cried a bit. They played it slower than the record, and a few others too, and that’s the thing that got the room. All ages, all sorts, dancing with their partners, their pals, their family, given the space to actually feel it rather than just hear it.

Then she’s on her own for All Night All Day. Just her and the guitar, everyone else stood aside. The room went dead silent, near two thousand people, and stayed that way. First time all night I’m actually hearing the words instead of the tune carrying me past them. “Swallow poison, swallow sugar, sometimes they taste the same.” Then the harmonies come round and the room’s singing them back, soft, all of us in it.

‘Not‘ was the one for the playing. On record it builds and builds. Live they let it run way past that, the two of them, Adrianne and Buck, tearing it open between them, this long distorted stretch in the middle where the song just comes apart. And at one point they’re turned right in toward each other, not out at us, grinning, watching each other’s hands. You forget there’s nearly two thousand folk in the room. Two people playing off each other and you happen to be stood at the side of it. She talks after, says she thinks she wrote it last time they were here, years ago, then catches herself, they weren’t in the city, they were out in the countryside near Glasgow. The song jogs it loose. Half-remembering where it came from, on the spot, in front of everyone.

By Incomprehensible I’d moved to the back, getting the whole crowd in one shot. Two thousand people from behind, the guy with the camera again.

Afterwards I met my girlfriend out the front. It was the eve of her birthday and she’d come with her pal, the two of them together and she’d been up in the crowd taking photos of me down in the pit. I’m pointed at the band all night and she’s pointed at me. People hugging and kissing in the street outside the Barrowlands, a cool wet Glasgow night, a load of folk who’d all clearly felt the night the same way I had.

Their Glasgow shows were a sell out and Big Thief’s tour continues across Europe this June, with dates in Belgium, Spain, Italy, Germany and Luxembourg, before a North American run through to October. Full dates HERE.

Big Thief 30th May 2026 Setlist

1. Masterpiece
2. Simulation Swarm
3. Muscle Memory
4. Shark Smile
5. Mr. Man
6. Where Will We Go
7. Los Angeles
8. Words
9. All Night All Day
10. Double Infinity
11. Beautiful World
12. Time Escaping
13. Not
14. Vampire Empire

Encore:

15. Spud Infinity
16. Incomprehensible