SATURDAY 17 SEPTEMBER
Paradiso (Grote Zaal), 20.00, €12.50 + membership

Almost two years to the day since We Were Promised Jetpacks made their Amsterdam debut, they’re back with a FatCat posse to headline the main hall in Paradiso. Back then it was only the small room, and having half expected it to be the typical audience for Scottish indie bands – 30-odd stragglers, comprised mainly of expats – it was a bit of a surprise to find the room was absolutely rammed. The band certainly wasn’t expecting such a response but it was undoubtedly a pleasant surprise for them. They stormed through all of their debut album These Four Walls before every piece of merchandise was hungrily devoured by enthusiastic teens – some so young they’d been brought by their parents – wanting every element signed.

Since that night, the Jetpacks have been back in Amsterdam a couple of times, probably most notably playing a mosh-friendly set at London Calling in 2009, before returning to Melkweg last year in support of their stripped-back EP The Last Place You’ll Look. But after a lull, they’re building momentum again, a gentle buzz growing for their upcoming album In the Pit of the Stomach, which looks certain to up the pace and noise once more. Just a couple of tracks have been teased from it so far, but after a lot of road work in the past couple of years, they seem to have sharpened their sound and expanded their songwriting skills – particularly seeing as they were scarily young when they recorded their debut.

Then there’s The Twilight Sad, a band that I’ve been trying to make the world listen to for at least four years. It’s not that they’re a hard sell. Their debut album Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters was a distinctive slab of dark Scottish shoegaze which garnered international acclaim, written and recorded before they ever began mucking about in front of actual people. Yet it was onstage where it really blossomed, the songs slowed, frustrations violently vented and singer James Graham’s abstract and guttural delivery piercing through the noise.

They’ve brought the spectacle to Amsterdam a few times already, but it’s never quite clicked the way it seems to in the UK (or even in Germany or the US). It didn’t help that their first visit was to an empty Paradiso on a freezing December night, somewhat confused as to why their headline slot was beginning at 7pm with the entire building almost deserted. A support gig with Mogwai in Melkweg faired a bit better – likeminded fans and all that – but their gig at London Calling 2009 was definitely marked by a noisy rage that somewhat scared away the schoolkids in the audience.

More recently they’ve been specialising in acoustic sets, some of which have been utterly magical. But with a new album recorded and set for release this winter, they’re exploring their noise roots once more, and seemingly introducing a more synthy ’80s tone to their dirty wash of guitar. Are my heroes of cardigaze (cardigan shoegaze, duh!) really going cardigoth? We’ll see.

As this night is a FatCat special, the Scottish overlords of dour are being joined by the somewhat brighter fuzz pop of Brighton’s Mazes.

Anyway, as I’d like to teach the world to sing ‘Walking For Two Hours’, we have a bunch of tickets to give away. To win, email win@unfoldamsterdam.nl and let us know whether you’d rather have a jetpack or be home feeling sad this Saturday. Stick FatPig in the subject, too, just so it doesn’t get lost.