The View, La Belle Angele, Edinburgh, review: A band to be taken through life

A decade on from making their mark, they remain trapped in amber in a pleasingly invigorating fashion

The View's first flush of popular success around 2007 has dissipated since (Joost Vandebrug)

Dundee’s the View are a band so hard-wearing they even book a gig on January the 1st, when the nation is meant to be languishing in its hangover.

Their career, it seems, is just as durable; although their first flush of popular success around 2007 has dissipated since, they still play regularly and to ferocious responses, while last year’s Albert Hammond Jr-produced fifth album Ropewalk nearly broke the UK top twenty.

A decade on from the fiery, youthful abandon which made their mark, they remain trapped in amber in the most pleasingly invigorating fashion.

Fans crowd one wing of the stage, singer Kyle Falconer mutters through overlong tuning breaks, and it all reminds of a Scots version of the View’s old mates the Libertines.

They break into acoustic singalongs involving the whole room on tracks like ‘Face for the Radio’ and ‘Superstar Tradesman’, and old faithfuls like the big hit ‘Same Jeans’ are updated with the same energy but more worldly wisdom on new tracks like ‘Cracks’, with its bittersweet “I see the cracks in this town / they're weighing me down” chorus.

At one point bassist Kieren Webster poignantly dedicates a song to a fan who had died the week before, to a roar from the crowd, and they seem like a band to be taken through life rather than discarded after youth.