DMA’S will take you back to the hedonistic Britpop era

Written by Paul Cooper

If you never experienced the breakthrough of 1990’s Britpop and wondered what it was like, going to a DMA’s gig guarantees a feeling that is very similar.

DMA’S captivating their Glasgow followers at the O2 Academy on Tuesday, February 17.

Walking into a packed O2 Academy in Glasgow on Tuesday night (February 17) and seeing a smoke-filled stage alongside the dusky contemporary lighting, gave me one of the closest experiences to that time I’ve had since.

On stage was Australian support band, Salarymen, and the lower tempo Indie style they were playing proved to be popular with the crowd and an ideal way to lead them into the main course they were hungrily waiting for.

DMA’S are also Australian and although these letters don’t seem to mean anything, it has been reported the name came about as a management decision to abbreviate the band’s old name ‘The Dirty Ma’s’.

Their impressive Scottish following was confirmed after Salarymen finished playing, chants of ‘D-D-DMA’S’ and ‘No Scotland, no party’ could be heard from the excited crowd as they waited on their heroes entering for the final Glasgow performance of the ‘Hills End 10th Anniversary UK tour’.

Hills End, the band’s debut album, is considered to be a major breakthrough in their career, with tracks such as ‘Delete’ (15 in the independent singles breakers chart, with over 36 million streams in the UK) and ‘Lay Down’ (over 26 million streams in the UK), possibly going down well in this country due to their indie influences and similarities to certain bands (Ash and Shed Seven spring to mind).

The whole album was played from start to finish, with some more high tempo songs afterwards.

DMA’S were feeding off the energy from the crowd, going through album songs like ‘In The Moment’ and ‘Melbourne’, as their Glasgow fans sang along to every word.

Lead singer Tommy O’Dell provided the haunting vocals, with reported similarities to Oasis front man Liam Gallagher being slightly skewed in my opinion.

The person that chats to the crowd at a gig is usually the singer, but in this case guitarist Johnny Took spoke on the mic, mentioning that Scotland was the only country where the DMA’S have had a number one album (Glow, 2020).

Took and fellow guitarist Matt Mason were on their game all night, with Took providing some nice acoustic work.

Drummer Liam Hoskins was also impressive, matching the energy of the band with his perfectly timed drumming throughout the gig.

The band built up to a stunning crescendo, as they interacted with the crowd to play the last part of ‘Hello Girlfriend’ over and over when it sounded like it was coming to an end, then onto the fast paced ‘Feels Like 37’, before finishing on ‘Lay Down’ (played for the second time).

If you get the chance to see DMA’S, take it, they are a band doing great things at the moment and on this evidence are only going to get bigger.