The latest NME tour brings another collection of bands – Bombay Bicycle Club, The Maccabees, The Big Pink and The Drums – looking to put a modern twist on familiar sounds. With sharp, noisy guitars and quivering vocals all round, the tour harks back to an era when difficult, angular indie music was the preserve of people who would rightly shudder to see their punk, post-punk and new wave idols sharing poster space with hair product advertising.

Things change however, and the Shockwaves NME Awards Tour is still to be celebrated, as it allies a group of hard-working, credible live acts in an appealing bill. Leading the pack are London’s Bombay Bicycle Club, a group that NME have been touting since the band’s GCSE year. 2009’s album, I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose has booked them a place on the tour, and bass and keyboard player Ed Rush is excited.

‘We’ve met The Maccabees a few times. They’re lovely guys and we like their music a lot.’ He admits to not having heard that much of The Drums, but is ‘excited about getting to know them’. The Brooklyners’ marriage of surf-influenced guitar pop and straightforward Cure rip off is a nice counterpoint to BBC’s sound.

For Rush, it’s also ‘older indie music, like Television, and early 90s stuff like Pavement,’ that has informed the band’s tight, simple but deceptively rich sound; influences shared by Brighton’s The Maccabees no doubt. The Big Pink are the breakthrough indie-fuzz poster boys who complete the line-up, making, overall, a bill that encompasses a little bit of everything alt. Derivative, maybe, but always good value and good fun.

Barrowland, Glasgow, Fri 5 Feb