A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
Diary: Dean Wareham in Glasgow - 1st April 2025
So now I’m back from The Netherlands, and have seen my last Dean Wareham show of this tour I thought I’d just scribble down some thoughts/words about the three shows I’ve been at. This is not going to be any insightful analysis, or detailed review - more just a few half-baked reminscences surrounded by pictures and videos.
Since, disappointingly, Newcastle hadn’t made it onto the tour schedule this time (despite there being seven UK shows!), I decided to head to Glasgow for the first date of the tour. Glasgow is a fairly easy journey from home, Metro from Whitley Bay to Newcastle, then a train to Edinburgh, and another to Glasgow.
I arrived in the city by early afternoon and killed a bit of time wandering around before checking into my cheap (in both price and quality) hotel. After a bit of a rest I took the subway and headed west to meet up with Kelly and Kenny, first at their flat, for a cuppa, some chat, and some cat-love. Then to a rather excellent restaurant for some pre-show food - all of this took longer than anticipated so we arrived at the venue only shortly before Dean Wareham and band took the stage.
The Garage, is a fairly big hall, with a high stage, and some over-enthusuastic air-con - and since our arrival was a bit tardy I positioned myself a third of the way back on the right hand side.
The band, Dean and Britta with Roger Brogan on drums and Matt Popieluch on guitar/keys, opened with a run of six songs from Dean’s new album which all sounded good live, and were well received. Next up was Galaxie 500’s Parking Lot, which seemed to be a little heavier/harder than I was expecting and took me a little while to come to terms with - maybe because it was the first time hearing a Galaxie 500 song live in quite a long time, and maybe the venue and the audience required to to be so?
Galaxie 500’s When Will You Come Home was a personal highlight, although the whole set was fine and showed no sign of the fact that the band had only just arrived in the country.
Most of the rest of the set was made up of Galaxie 500 songs (five in total) and a couple of Luna songs, Friendly Advice and 23 Minutes in Brussels, which where both played in a slower/sweeter arrangement. There were also a couple of tracks from Dean’s previous album, Just as Much as It Was Worth and The Last Word - that had been turned into a duet with Britta singing the part of Eleanor Marx, and Dean being the liar and deceiver.
The show finished with an encore of Galaxie 500’s Strange, and 23 Minutes.
We loitered around in the hall for a while chatting with some other friends/fans before it was decided we would all decamp to a nearby pub to carry on. This was the point that I found myself in a pub with Dean, Britta, and Glasgow indie music celebs (The Pastels) - I sat quietly and nursed my ginger beer until closing time. Then snuck back to my tiny hotel room for an uncomfortable sleep and the return to Whitley Bay the next day.
There are a few more of my rubbish pics.