In the chocolate box selection of rock and pop, Travis are undoubtedly one of the softer centres. Some people love the gooey sweetness of, say, a strawberry cream, and a great number of them were gathered for one of the Scottish moments of the year: Travis at home. You know it was a "moment" because the crowd sang Flower of Scotland. "There's so much love in this room, man," said Fran Healy cloyingly, reminding me that I prefer a hard nut. He has a new mohican hairdo but still sounds sweet, sickly sweet.
But if you're going to see the band, see them on their home turf. Much nonsense is talked about Glasgow crowds being extra demonstrative, but with Travis - a seriously big band, in the charts and ubiquitous on radio playlists - they do more than lift the gig: they make it. Just as with Texas and Garbage, it's as if the crowd can't quite believe the band is theirs. Travis sing their small, melodic songs of mirth and misery, and the room seethes with affection and reverence.
Most haven't heard the new album, The Invisible Band, out on Monday, but they listen to its songs (which make up more than half the set) in rapt adoration, saying "Shhh!" to people who talk through the Radioheadesque Dear Diary. They love Healy's banter, his admissions that he has kept a diary since reading Adrian Mole when he was 12 ( he calls it his "invisible friend"), his belief that "if you say something, it happens". He actually uses the word "affirmate". Amazingly, no one vomits.
That's because these are songs that iron out cynicism, pretend to be nothing more than they are. From the new album, The Cage might sound like it could delve into existential despair but in fact it's a tinkly little thing about having to let love go ("to keep her caged would only delay the spring"). Flowers in the Window, about the desire to start a family ("in the band and in the crowd", says Healy, assuming rather a lot), shows just how unthreatening the band is. As they play, they could be any light combo from the 1960s, with bassist Dougie Payne even doing a McCartney head wiggle.
They play all the hits from The Man Who, with Why Does It Always Rain on Me? going down even better than it did, in a downpour, at last year's T in the Park. Turn gets almost as rapturous a welcome, just as it should from a post-devolution Scottish audience, but it's only when they cover All the Young Dudes that you remember what a big, chewy centre of a tune tastes like.
