There are gigs where you walk through the doors knowing exactly what you’re going to get. Then there are the ones that completely catch you off guard. SKÁLD and The HU belong firmly in the latter category.
The HU arrived at Glasgow’s O2 Academy with SKÁLD for a night that, on paper, already promised something a little different. Both bands draw heavily from traditional music and instrumentation while creating something that can sit comfortably alongside the heavier end of the musical spectrum. What perhaps wasn’t quite so obvious beforehand was just how powerful both would become once those sounds were unleashed inside the venue.
By the end of the night, this had become far more than simply another rock show.
Opening the night were SKÁLD, a band already firmly on my radar. We had previously covered the release of HIMINBJǪRG here at Dead Centre Media, so I went into the evening already knowing how impressive they could sound. What I wasn’t prepared for was just how captivating they would be live.
There is something almost impossible to properly describe about seeing SKÁLD live. From the opening moments of Ek Skal Ríða, it felt less like watching a conventional live band and more like being dragged headfirst into some strange, ancient ritual. You might not entirely understand the journey they’re taking you on, but within minutes you’re completely on board with it.
The sound was absolutely enormous. Every strike of the drums could be felt as much as heard, while the chanting and layered vocals filled the room and created an atmosphere unlike almost anything you’ll encounter at a typical rock or metal show.
What really struck me was how quickly SKÁLD managed to make everything outside that stage feel almost irrelevant. There was something hypnotic about the combination of percussion, voices and traditional instrumentation. Tracks including Ó Valhalla, Hross, Draumakona and Grótti only pulled the audience further into their world.
When HIMINBJǪRG arrived later in the set, it was particularly satisfying having already heard and covered the track beforehand. As good as it sounds recorded, hearing it in this environment gave it an entirely different weight.
By the time SKÁLD reached the closing stretch of Yggdrasill and Ljósálfur, they had me completely. For the entirety of their set, my attention never wandered. The combination of pounding percussion, hypnotic chanting and extraordinary vocal performances was utterly captivating.
I’d gone in knowing SKÁLD were good. I walked away realising that simply listening to them doesn’t quite prepare you for experiencing them.
For those few songs, SKÁLD weren’t supporting anyone. The room belonged entirely to them.
And somehow, there was still The HU to come.
If SKÁLD had already taken me by surprise, apparently I hadn’t learned my lesson by the time The HU were ready to take the stage.
The HU are another band I’d been aware of for years. I’d followed their rise as they seemingly appeared everywhere across social media, introducing millions of people around the world to their unmistakable blend of Mongolian traditional music and heavy rock.
I knew what The HU sounded like. I knew what they were capable of.
Once again, I wasn’t prepared for just how impressive they would be live.
The Glasgow crowd certainly were.
Before the band had even properly appeared, chants of “HU! HU! HU!” were ringing around the O2 Academy. Clearly everyone else had received the memo. When The HU emerged, the atmosphere immediately shifted and it felt as though the entire room had been waiting for that moment.
The O2 Academy can occasionally be a little hit or miss when it comes to sound, but tonight it was absolutely huge. Both bands benefited from an incredibly powerful mix, and with The HU in full flight, the weight behind everything coming from the stage was immense.
Part of what makes watching The HU so fascinating is simply seeing how that sound is created. There were instruments on that stage that I’d genuinely never seen played live before, yet nothing about the performance felt like a novelty. The traditional instrumentation wasn’t there as some unusual addition to a rock band – it was fundamental to what The HU are.
And somehow, when everything came together, it was heavy.
Not heavy in the conventional sense of distorted guitars being pushed as far as possible, but in the sheer physical weight of the sound. Percussion, strings, voices and modern instrumentation combined into something that could feel ancient and contemporary at exactly the same time.
Then there are those voices.
The unmistakably Mongolian throat singing is extraordinary enough on record, but hearing those deep, resonant vocals reverberating around the O2 Academy is another experience entirely. It’s a sound you don’t simply hear – at points, you can practically feel it.
The set moved through Lost Soul, The Same, Upright Destined Mongol, The Men and Shaihuu, before the appropriately titled Warrior Chant demonstrated just how naturally the Glasgow audience had become part of the performance.
There were still some enormous moments to come.
Yuve Yuve Yu and Wolf Totem are songs that helped introduce huge numbers of listeners to The HU, and hearing them delivered with this kind of power made it easy to remember why the band attracted so much attention in the first place.
By the time This Is Mongol and Thunder brought the evening towards its conclusion, there was very little left for The HU to prove.
Eight musicians stood across that stage creating an absolutely colossal wall of sound from instruments and vocal techniques originating thousands of miles from Glasgow, yet the connection between band and audience required absolutely no translation.
That might have been the most impressive thing about the entire evening.
SKÁLD had opened the night by transporting the O2 Academy somewhere else entirely. The HU then took that atmosphere and turned it into something enormous.
I’d walked into the venue familiar with both bands and thinking I had a fairly good idea of what the evening would sound like.
I was wrong.
Some music makes perfect sense through headphones. Other music needs to be experienced live before you can really understand what makes it special.
You can listen to SKÁLD and The HU all you want. Seeing them live is an entirely different experience.
The HU: official | facebook | twitter/X | instagram | spotify | youtube | tiktok
SKÁLD: official | facebook | instagram | spotify | youtube
