Mike Dawes - Oran Mor, Glasgow, 2nd April 2025
Reviewed by Gregor Adams • 14 April 2025
Mike Dawes is an acoustic fingerstyle guitarist, who has brought redefining technique to the style of playing. Mike’s playing has the ability to fill a whole room with all the elements of song – melody, harmony, a bassline and even percussion. Bringing all of these together on one instrument is a rare thing, making his solo concert a really unique experience. I remember the first time hearing him play on YouTube, and wanting to put down my electric for good, and only play acoustic from there on.
Mike Dawes has a custom made guitar, by German luthier ‘Andreas Cuntz’, which has special provisions made to fit his playing style. Examples of these customisations include a special ‘scratch pad’, and a distinct body to make hitting the guitar more accessible whilst playing, both used to emulate the sound of drums. This is a guitar I’ve watched a few ‘rig rundowns’ on, so it was really cool to see it being used in front of me.
Unfortunately, due to issues with my train I missed the first 20 minutes of the show – a bit of a blow considering he played some of his more popular covers then, including ‘Jump’ by Van Halen and ‘Somebody I used to know’ by Gotye. There’s a great video of Mike playing ‘Jump’ on YouTube (that anyone reading this should watch to get an idea of his talent) where he somehow manages to play Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo whilst continuing with the backing instrumental?!
I still managed to catch plenty of the show after my delayed arrival. The show consisted primarily of covers of songs, arranged by Mike. There were a couple original pieces of music mixed in, which might have been nice to hear more of; there was a pretty big degree of experimentality in these originals, which could maybe be perceived as a bit over the top and admittedly unnecessary (like playing the strings behind the capo to add a drum beat). However, this was a Mike Dawes concert, where people have paid to see him do weird Mike Dawes things, so I welcomed it.
Other noteworthy covers included ‘All Along the Watchtower’, ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. There was a great segment in the show during a cover of John Mayer’s ‘Slow Dancing in a Burning Room’, where the audience was split in half, and were instructed on what notes to sing, resulting in the whole of Oran Mór singing in harmony, ignoring my bum notes.
The gig ended with Mike unplugging the guitar and having a walk about the audience, playing ‘Be My Mistake’ by The 1975, a really great ending. Mike stuck about for a pint at the merch booth once the show had wrapped up, where I got a chance to meet him and get a photo, along with everyone else waiting in line. It was Mike’s first show in Glasgow, and I’m definitely hoping for many more!