Tuff Love create their own luck at Reading 2016

There are few challenges for bands more daunting than an near-empty tent, and on Tuff Love’s arrival at Festival Republic, that’s exactly what the Glaswegians are faced with. Still, after a slightly subdued opener, they quickly get into the swing of things with the effortlessness of Andy Murray playing a casual game of swingball at the weekend, and soon enough, majority of the weary, hungover bodies littering the nearby grass are up the front instead, getting a wake-up fix of their fuzzy, saccharine grunge.

“I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves” comments Julie Eisenstein quietly. “Ay!?” exclaims bassist Suse Bear, and she repeats herself a little louder. A woop goes up in reply, and the pair grin. Woozy lyrics ripped straight from a diary entry, they sing of their rage on ‘Slammer’ with disarmingly sweetened harmonies, and on ‘Junk Son’ EP cut, ‘Sweet Discontent,’ Tuff Love sherbet-coat painful, restrictive longing; “what you call love is what crushes me”.

Many bands get lucky and find their way to bigger things, but carving out their own course, and showing huge potential, Tuff Love don’t need to rely on a dice roll or musical scratch card.