Lucinda Williams & Doug Pettibone @ Perth Concert Hall, Perth, 21 June 2013

The Perth Concert Hall is a 1700 + seated venue on the site of the former Horsecross Market in Perth and was designed by BDP (Glasgow), winners of an international architectural competition. The £17m venue was a great setting for this concert as it had an intimate and personal feel to it which suited Lucinda Williams' style of song perfectly and, of course, the acoustics were great.

I really enjoyed the support act, a solo set by Jimmy Livingstone of Glasgow roots, but raised in Midlands suburbia. He was on fine form, if a little breathless, and played songs mostly culled from his album One Eye Open, One Eye Closed. The collection of songs sounded good enough as solo material, however, now having heard the current album, the songs sound even better in the hands of the band Jimmy gathered together to record them. I particularly like the single Dessert Song and The World Below My Feet, shades of Richard Hawley in the vocal delivery and it is a song which Scott Walker would have been happy to write! We had the added attraction of an early visit to the stage by Doug Pettibone who came on to play pedal steel guitar on one number as well. It sounded exquisite! 

After a 15 minute 'ice cream' break, Lucinda Williams, Doug Pettibone and David Sutton came on stage to an enthusiastic welcome, clearly many of the audience have been here before, unlike 'yours truly'! This was my first time at one of Ms Williams' shows, although I have her body of recorded work back home. Unfortunately, the hall was only about three quarters full which, given the quality of performance we were about to witness, was a shame. However, as the lady herself said, these are pretty austere times and she was extremely thankful for those of us who had come out on a Friday night "to help support live music". 

The Band

After a brief introduction in that wonderful Louisianan drawl that is much appreciated on this side of the pond, the band set off with a stomping version of Randy Weeks' Can't Let Go from her Grammy Award winning 1998 album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. (The award was for best contemporary folk album as a matter of interest!)

From the outset, the sound of Williams' acoustic guitar, Sutton's electric bass guitar and Pettibone's lead electric guitar blended to create wonderful music, with each instrument making a great contribution to the overall sound, but also clearly heard on its own merit. Often the bass can be drowned out by the drummer, but on this occasion David Sutton's playing was beautifully clear.

60 year old Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1953 and the fact that her father was a professor of literature, an amateur pianist and a poet obviously helped her on her way as a musician of well written and often poignant lyrics. About her mother, who suffered from alcoholism and depression, she had this to say in an interview with Jane Shilling in the Telegraph back in May this year: "From the time I was born she was in therapy, and in and out of psychiatric hospitals."

Lucinda Williams on electric guitar

It is therefore no real surprise that she deals mainly with the darker side of life, love and death in her songs and we were treated to a number of sad, sombre down beat numbers on the night. In the same interview, she also said: “I'm fascinated with the subject of suicide. I've suffered from horrible sadness, melancholia, as a lot of us do, but I can’t imagine going to that place. My dad used to describe it as like a deep dark well, and we’re all standing around the edge, and some of us fall in." In fact, Lucinda Williams made reference to this fascination in one of her informative and humorous chats between songs after singing Pineola, which is perhaps one of the best examples of her dark, depressed work. The song was written about the death of a close friend back when she was growing up:

When Daddy told me what happened

I couldn't believe what he just said

Sonny shot himself with a 44

And they found him lyin' on his bed

I could not speak a single word

No tears streamed down my face

I just sat there on the living room couch

Starin' off into space

As a result of her father’s work, she had a peripatetic, nomadic upbringing and lived in Santiago, Mexico, where aged 17 she performed live for the first time, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Jackson, Mississippi, and Utah before settling in Fayetteville, Arkansas. This helped to form a "world view of life" from an early age and Williams' songs are written about places like Jackson, Lafayette, Lake Charles and Baton Rouge. 

Doug Pettibone

Alongside Williams was long term guitarist Doug Pettibone who was born and raised in Los Angeles, and like so many of these talented guys, started playing guitar at the age of eight and his first teacher was Andy Summers, formerly of The Police. He then studied with Eddie Lafreniere, guitarist for big band leader Jimmy Dorsey, with whom he studied the music of Dave Brubeck and Duke Ellington. Having gained a scholarship to Pepperdine University Malibu for Jazz Guitar, Classical Guitar and Voice, Doug graduated with a triple major in 1984.

In the last few years, Pettibone has played live and/or recorded with some of the most influential artists around, among them Keith Richards, Norah Jones, Steve Earle, Elvis Costello, Joan Baez, Mark Knopfler, Marianne Faithfull, Sting, Ray LaMontagne, Michelle Shocked, Vic Chesnutt and Lisa Marie Presley, to name a few! Doug’s style of guitar playing is extremely well suited to Williams’ idiosyncratic, Southern-inflected blend of country, folk and rock and he has been working with her off and on since 2001. I have seen some pretty impressive guitarists this year including Wilco Johnson, Ian Siegal, James De Prado, Mark Knopfler and Doug was easily as good as these guys. His solos were a joy to listen to and at times he played two different guitars during one song, before swapping on to the pedal steel guitar.

David Sutton

The last band member was David Sutton on bass and he played in a wonderful lolling style, at times it looked as if he were unconcerned by gravity and reminded me of the movement we associate with the early moon walks! David has, in his time, played bass for Dolly Parton, Randy Newman, Melissa Etheridge, Stan Ridgeway & The Monkees, so an impressive pedigree there too. David also performed superb backing vocals and at times the harmonies between the three artists on stage was wonderful. He also at one point turned his guitar, strings facing down, and thumped out a drum beat on the back of the instrument! The build up of music between these three gave me the mental image of Lucinda Williams’ electric guitar work spreading thick layers of butter icing, whilst Doug Pettibone and David Sutton spraying magical guitar notes on top, like ‘hundreds-and-thousands’ on a cake!

David Sutton thumping the bass

     

Stand out songs on the night were Pineola, Copenhagen, written about the death of Williams’ manager and one of those mournful songs at which she excels, Jailhouse Tears from the album Little Honey (on which she duets with Elvis Costello on the album version) and a wonderful version of Skip James’ Hard Times Killing Floor Blues. This last song had a great thumping bass and built up in to a mantra-esque work out which had me grooving along nicely!

Lucinda Williams & Doug Pettibone

Along the way, we also had Drunken Angel from 1998s Car Wheels On A Gravel Road which was written about Michael David Fuller, better known as Blaze Foley, a colourful local character from Texas and a friend of the equally tragic Townes Van Zandt. Williams described him as "a genius and a beuatiful loser" after his untimely death at the age of 39. We also had the wonderful Those Three Days form 2003s World Without Tears album and includes the brilliantly cutting lyrics:

Did you only want me for those three days?

 Did you only need me for those three days?

Did you love me forever

just for those three days?

After a scintillating hour and fifteen minutes, the show came to an end at about 22:00 and the band left the stage to a raucous standing ovation. Then, after some rousing encouragement, the threesome returned to do a three song encore which started with a memorable version of Springsteen’s Factory from his 1978 Darkness On The Edge Of Town album and ended with a great version of the gospel tinged Get Right With God from Williams' 2001 album Essence and had some seriously good boogie guitar and bass beats. A great end to a wonderfully entertaining show.

A sample of Lucinda Williams' work:

Why not check out Jimmy Livingston here: 

Gig started @ 20:45

Can't Let Go

Crescent City

Pineola

Lake Charles 

When I look At The World

Copenhagen

Blue

Jailhouse Tears

Concrete & Barbed Wire

Drunken Angle

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Those Three Days

Hard Times Killing Floor Blues – Skip James

Come On

Essence

Joy

Honey Bee

Encore

Factory - Springsteen

Blessed

Get Right With God

Gig ended @ 22:22

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band @ Hampden Park, Glasgow, 18 June 2013

I wonder how many of the 45 thousand plus who descended on the National (Football) Stadium here in Glasgow to attend the visit of the Boss and the E Street Band were aware that the date was an auspicious one. 18 June 2013 was two years to the day that the "big man" Clarence Clemons passed away and his presence was all over this one, which was a good thing, although it must have been tough for Bruce and the gang, no less so for young Jake Clemons, Clarence's nephew.

Jake Clemons

On my walk up to Hamped Park I couldn't help but notice the proliferation of Bruce Springsteen memorabilia. There were  numerous T-shirts, bandanas, wrist sweat bands, head scarves and so on. Were they really any more noticeable than at other similar gigs? Who can say, but there is one thing  one can say about a Springsteen fan, once you have seen him you don't forget him, as was evident by one original T-shirt I saw from the 84-85 Born In The USA tour. That was my introduction to the phenomenon that is Bruce Springsteen; an overnight bus journey from Glasgow to London; a day hanging about the capital and the unforgettable gig at Wembly on the night of 4 July 1985. Oh, and I still have my T-Shirt from that gig! (I have heard it said that, as he didn't attend Live Aid, which took place at the same venue on 13 July, he gifted the stage for the event but, again who knows!) Many of the albums released over the years were also represented at Hampden in the T-shirt stakes and I specifically recall a 75's Born to Run and 78's Darkness on the Edge of Town T-shirt.

Being Glasgow, there was a smattering of tartan 'bonnets', the odd "see you Jimmy" wig (Google it!), a few ill advised bandanas and a surprising number of empty seats at 18:54 (ticket stated a 19:00 kick off!). However, these were corporate tickets and their bar service would have been fairly abundant! Actually, on that note, down on the 'pitch' we were pretty well served by copious numbers of young lads with 24 pint packs on their backs. No end to necessity being the mother of invention!

Stars & Stripes

Saltire

As 19:27 approached there was a murmuring in the crowd then Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, all 16 of them, appeared on the vast stage and charged into the thunderous, thumping intro to We Take Care of Our Own, the first song on the current album Wrecking Ball. The song includes the line " wherever this flag is flown" and appropriately the Stars and Stripes was fluttering high up to the right of the stage with the Saltire, a local counterpoint, to the left. And so the journey had begun!

The view of the stage and screens

As well as flags, the huge stage was flanked by two sets of screens which afforded us a great view of the band who were some 75 meters (80 odd yards) away from where I was. I am not a fan of large venues and in Scotland they don't come much larger than this, however, technology seems to have caught up now and the quality of screen at the gig was outstanding. When the big screen behind the band came on, it was a real WOW factor. The clarity was phenomenal and it often afforded us a view of what the band saw, i.e.  us, the paying punter! It also allowed us to see the band members in extreme close up and I was impressed at how good the 63 year old Springsteen looked, however, I have to concede that I felt a tad relieved that even he is succumbing to the ravages of time with a hint of grey in his side burns and eye brows. He is human after all!

The Boss

Max Weinberg

For those of you  who have been to a Springsteen gig, you will know that he goes to the front of the stage during the early part of his shows and scans the assortment of placards, signs and cardboard cut outs. He then selects a few and returns to the stage to direct the band through a few of 'the people's choices'. This makes the early part of his shows somewhat unpredictable and also has the effect of keeping the band on their toes. You need to know your Springsteen back catalogue in its entirety to be in the E Street Band it would seem! On this occasion it also had the effect of throwing up a song new to me, a veteran of five shows. Jole Blon, is a traditional cajun waltz, often called "the cajun national anthem" because of the popularity it had in cajun culture and this rendition was only the second time that it has appeared on this tour, so a rarity to savour early on.

The band's view

Then after a few numbers off the set list we had My City of Ruins which in this case was dedicated to the memories of Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici and was prompted by a placard from the audience in memory of the two former band members. Daniel Paul "Danny" Federici, who sadly passed away on  April 17, 2008, was the long standing organ, glockenspiel, and accordion player in the E Street band, whilst Clarence Clemons was the saxophone player and one of the Boss' closest friends. Springsteen asked us if we "were missing anybody tonight?" and went on to say that "if we were and we were here, then they were here too". It was an extremely emotional moment, especially for me as I lost my wife of 24 years recently and I am not ashamed to admit that the tears were running down my cheeks (thanks Paul for the much needed hug, by the way!). At this point I happened to notice that the sun had dipped below the Western Enclosure roof, bringing shadows to the event and our thoughts. Then, several songs later, the Boss picked a card from a woman which was dedicated to her late father "Tougher Than The Rest, Shug 23 July 1951 - 16 March 2013" and sang the song of that title from 87's Tunnel of Love album. Then, having sung the song, he showed his genuine kindness by going back down to the audience and giving the card back to Shug's daughter. A sincere action of kindness by a selfless individual. 

"Lest we forget"

The brass section

On a lighter note, a few friends asked me why they heard a lot of people booing throughout the gig! I explained that they weren't booing, in fact they were shouting "Bruuuce, Bruuuce"! 


I suggested that perhaps he should change his name to Brian or some other Monty Python character! 

Bruce & Stevie hamming it up

Bruce & Stevie

There were other moments of levity too, for example when consigliere Silvio Dante from the recent TV series the “Sopranos”, aka Stevie Van Zandt and the Boss 'mugged' for the camera and again during 84's Dancing In The Dark when an audience member got her wish and got to dance with Jake before being asked to play guitar with Springsteen. Indeed, there is a quasi religious feel to these event at times, it often feels as if you  have wondered in off the streets and into some kinda evangelical get together of fascinating intensity. The lyrics are sometimes religious in nature and, obviously there is the ubiquitous "Mary" who takes the role of almost all the important women in Springsteen's songs, but also, and to pick just one example, the lyrics from The Price You Pay from The River back in 1980 include the following:

Little girl down on the strand / With that pretty little baby in your hands / Do you remember the story of the promised land / How he crossed the desert sands / And could not enter the chosen land  / On the banks of the river he stayed / To face the price you pay

Cindy Mizelle

Nils Lofgren

Bruce, Stevie & us

Also, Springsteen dominates the stage in a reverential manner, delivering many of his inter song chats as if they were homilies and we, the audience, were often exalted to raise our hands heavenward. If this is a new religion, I for one would be looking to sign up on the dotted line! It is exciting, exhilarating  exhausting, energising,  enticing and exuberating. Too many E's for a religion? May be, but maybe not! However, how ever you look at it, it is a "come one, come all" ethos, all encompassing (more E's!) and your wishes can come true, you can get up on the stage and sing, dance, play guitar with the Boss. Indeed, we witnessed a moment when a Gram Parsons look-a-like held aloft a piece of cardboard asking for the boss' guitar pick, and the boss duly obliged. Your wish is my command. Fantastic!

Girl on guitar with Bruce

A point of local interest, but also indicative of how popular this gathering was, the evening paper ran with a headline stating that "Rocker Bruce Springsteen today turned Glasgow into a £1 million sell-out" and went on to report "Every available hotel room within a 10-mile radius of the city centre has been snapped up by fans as the American singer songwriter known as the Boss gets set to perform tonight at Hampden Park. More than 9000 rooms are fully booked and today frantic tourism chiefs were having to tell visitors desperate for a bed to try local hostels and student accommodation". Also, it has to be said that matters were made worse by the "1000 occupational therapists who arrived in Glasgow the night before in time for a three-day conference at the SECC"!

Bruce relaxing!

But back to the gig! It was by now about 20:40 and I know from a close friend who is a 'casual' fan that he thought that things didn't really take off and I guess that that is one of the by products of the Boss' approach in the early part of the show, i.e.  taking 'requests', that is to say it can be a bit hit and miss. Looking at the set list, we were by now about 16 - 17 songs in and there had only been a couple of big hits. However, for the aficionado (sorry Bill!) that is what it is all about. As the saying goes "you pays your money, and you takes your chance". Down on the floor, we were absorbing each other's enthusiasm and delight whilst up there in the seats folk were aware of their neighbours reluctance to 'get on down'. I know, I've been there!

Stevie Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen & Jake Clemons

However, no matter where you  were, or what your conscious state of mind, I'll wager (money changer in the temple? Dodgy!) that when the band struck up Open All Night, which first appeared on the Boss' career high '82 solo album Nebraska, you just had to get up and, to use the Boss' words, get "your brain to tell your ass" that it needs to be shaken! So, much ass shakin' was in evidence whilst the entire back line of the band stormed the front of the stage and boogied. They gave it 'laldy' as we say around these parts, meaning 'putting their hearts and souls into it'! Incidentally, the E Street Band were so named because on a journey home the band were trying to come up with a name when in the early hours they got back to the Jersey shore and they were headed to  1105 E Street, Belmar, New Jersey, when Springsteen saw a street sign for E Street and he liked it. There was another street in the neighbourhood that Springsteen made famous, it was Tenth Avenue! Things were really taking off now and next up we had Darlington County from the ground breaking 84 album Born In The USA. Around me, folk began shouting out the words and were really starting to 'get into the groove', the party had started and we were going to enjoy it!

'Professor' Roy Bittan

By 21:30 the last rays of the sun were fading in the western sky and an anointed young lad was lifted up onto the stage to sing along with Bruuuuce on the 2002 song from The Rising: Waiting on a Sunny Day. Serendipitously we had been hoping, and some probably praying, for a sunny day and, lo and behold, we were granted one. What more could we ask for? How good could things be? Well, as it happened, a wee bit better! Meanwhile, on stage Nils Lofgren was playing slide guitar and 'Professor' Roy Bittan was tickling the ivories to magnificent effect, whilst Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg were keeping things so tight that it would have been impossible to slide a rizla between them! Then as the band broke into Land Of Hope And Dreams, the studio recording was released for the first time on Wrecking Ball in 2012, I happened to look up and saw a clear blue sky above, not a cloud to be seen in the firmament. It was 21:55 in the northern hemisphere and there were many around me who truly believed that they were indeed in the land of hope and dreams.

The screen and stage

Then, bang on the stroke of 22:00, the first encore got under way as the thunderous, thumping  tumultuous drum and guitar intro to the brilliant, bouncing, bountyful sound that is Born to Run, off Springsteen's 3rd of 17 albums to date, ripped through the sound system and flooded around the stadium, encompassing and enveloping us all and bringing us to a new high. By now we had lost our inhibitions and were groovin', gesticulating, grinning, gyrating', "gettin' it down", shimmying, swaying, shaking, singing and swallying! (For you non-Scots, that means 'Imbibing'!) We were in the zone, we had been "sprung from cages out on highway 9......'cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run"! The harder we danced, the harder the band worked, still playing with zest and vigour. I was finding it hard to keep up, and many of them have a good few years start on me! And so, as the night drew to a close, we boogied with Rosalita, who had come out for the night, we danced in the dark and twisted and shouted our way to the grand finale. But first a special mention for Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out from 75's Born to Run album. When it got to the part where Springsteen sang  "Big Man joined the band", there was a pause, where in the song, Clarence's sax solo would have been performed and we cheered, and I for one, was doing so in honour the big man's memory.

Springsteen and Clemons met in 1971 and became life long friends, at the time Clemons was playing with Norman Seldin & The Joyful Noyze at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Clemons was encouraged to check out Springsteen, who was playing with The Bruce Springsteen Band at the nearby Student Prince. Clemons recalled their meeting in various interviews as follows (at this point I would like to quote from a French Springsteen fan site via Wikipedia): 

"One night we were playing in Asbury Park. I'd heard The Bruce Springsteen Band was nearby at a club called The Student Prince and on a break between sets I walked over there. On-stage, Bruce used to tell different versions of this story but I'm a Baptist, remember, so this is the truth. A rainy, windy night it was, and when I opened the door the whole thing flew off its hinges and blew away down the street. The band were on-stage, but staring at me framed in the doorway. And maybe that did make Bruce a little nervous because I just said, "I want to play with your band," and he said, "Sure, you do anything you want." The first song we did was an early version of "Spirit in the Night". Bruce and I looked at each other and didn't say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other's lives. He was what I'd been searching for. In one way he was just a scrawny little kid. But he was a visionary. He wanted to follow his dream. So from then on I was part of history." 

The late, great Clarence Clemons

"Good night and thanks a lot"

And so to the final encore, by now the band had left the stage, each one was greeted by Springsteen as they trooped off, and then he walked to the microphone front and centre stage and sang a solo, acoustic version of Thunder Road. This was the third time in a row that he had finished a gig with this song, and I got the impression that the Boss had been getting ready for this one. The performance was sublime, and the choice of song inspired, being as it was the first song on the seminal album Born To Run which is considered by many to be the pinnacle of Springsteen and Clemons' work together. So perhaps on this night, this night of all nights, it was deliberate, but if not, it was fitting that the band were all dressed in black in memory of two dear departed friends, colleagues, magnificent musicians and men whom many in the audience will have grown up with and grown to love from afar. Everyone sang along and some of us wept, yes it was that emotional. I have to say that leaving an audience with such a song, such magnificent lyrics and such a performance guaranteed satisfaction, to steal a Stones line. Will I see a better gig? Possibly, and it will probably be when the Boss and the E Street Band roll their particular brand of energetic, enthusiastic, high octane rock and roll back to my neck of the woods. A truly  heartfelt thanks and 'haste ye back'.

Stevie Van Zandt

The E Street Band:

Bruce Springsteen - guitar & vocals

Stevie Van Zandt - guitar, mandolin & vocals

Patti Scialfa - vocals (not on stage) 

Max Weinberg - drums & percussion

Garry Tallent - bass

Roy Bittan - piano, keyboards & accordion

Nils Lofgren - guitar, mandolin & accordion

Soozie Tyrell - violin, acoustic guitar, vocals & accordion

Charles Giordano - organ,keyboards & accordion

Everett Bradley - percussion and backing vocals

Jake Clemons - saxaphone

Eddie Manion - saxaphone

Barry Danielia - trumpet

Curt Ramm - trumpet

Clark Gayton - trombone

Curtis King - backing vocals

Cindy Mizelle - backing vocals

Michelle Moore - backing vocals

The Set List:

Gig started at 19:27

1. We Take Care of Our Own

2. The Ties That Bind

3. Jole Blon (sign request)

4. It’s Hard To Be a Saint In The City (sign request)

5. Radio Nowhere

6. No Surrender

7. Wrecking Ball

8. Death To My Hometown

9. My City of Ruins

(Moment of silence for the E Street Band’s “missing brothers”)

10. Spirit In The Night

11. E Street Shuffle

12. I'm On Fire (sign request)

13. Tougher Than The Rest (sign request)

14. Atlantic City

15. Murder Incorporated

16. Johnny 99

17. Open All Night

18. Darlington County

19. Shackled and Drawn

20. Waiting on a Sunny Day

21. The Rising 

22. Badlands

23. Land of Hope and Dreams

Encore

24. Born To Run

25. Rosalita

26. Dancing in the Dark

27. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

28. Twist & Shout

29. Shout

Encore

30. Thunder Road

Gig ended at 22:57

Admiral Fallow @ The Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow 17 June 2013

The Refugee Week Scotland Opening Concert, organised by The Scottish Refugee Council and The Red Cross, consisted of Glasgow-based pop folksters Admiral Fallow and fellow Scottish Album of the Year nominees Karine Polwart and former Arab Strap man Malcolm Middleton.

Malcolm Middleton

Malcolm Middleton got the show off to a pensive, solo start playing acoustic guitar and was followed by Karine Polwart, who had brought along her brother Steven on guitar and Inge Thompson on accordion. 

Karine Polwart

Admiral Fallow

Then at about 22:00, Louis Abbott (who resembles a mix between Guy Garvey of Elbow & a young David Blunkett!) and the rest of Admiral Fallow came on stage and played a tight twelve song set, including a one song encore.

Formed in 2007, Admiral Fallow have been gaining a steady following since releasing their first album Boots Met My Face in 2010 and following this up in 2012 with Tree Bursts in Snow, nominated for Best Album of the Year. They also received a 2012 Creative Scotland Music Award and had their american profile boosted when one of their tunes was used in an advert on US telly during the Super Bowl. This was my second time seeing them live, having caught them in the Barrowlands at the end of last year, and I really enjoyed their enthusiastic, energetic performance. 

Admiral Fallow

They are a six piece at heart, consisting of Louis Abbott on lead vocals and guitar; Kevin Brolly on clarinet, keyboards, vocals and percussion; Philip Hague on drums, vocals and percussion; Sarah Hayes on flute, piano, vocals and accordion; Joseph Rattray on bass and vocals & Stuart Goodall on lead guitar.  Louis Abbott has previously described the bands sound as "orchestral indie pop" and states Elbow, Springsteen and Tom Waits as influences. I would add Belle & Sebastian to that list as much of their instrumental passages bare a passing resemblance to this fellow Scottish band. 

Sarah Hayes

With the the faint strangled strains of 'noise' (like a radio being tuned) and the crisp, clear voice of Sarah Hayes singing "we came here to ask, if you'd stop selling them" the band launched into Tree Bursts from their current album. The song builds slowly and occasionally slides back into a lovely duet between Hayes and Abbott, all underscored by a great thumping drum and bass and then peters out on a great tinkling piano solo. 

Louis Abbott

This is a bunch of talented musicians and they were having a good night. For me, the band's sound is highlighted by Kevin Brolly who alternated between keyboards, clarinet and great tub thumbing, pounding additional drums whilst standing, a la Miles Davies, with his back to the audience! Another feature of this band are the lyrics, which are hinted at in the song titles: The Paper Trench and Beetle in the Box being good examples!

"And we suffer in silent moth balled fury / Trees that have long since shed their rings /As if to rub out the ball point memory of a thousand sins"

There is a great deal going on here and it all makes for a fascinating aural experience. My favourite song varies depending on my mood but I am always drawn back to Isn't This World Enough?? with the lyrics:

Stuart Goodall

Joseph Rattray

"So love this vessel while you're aboard / There will be no deposit back from a cosmic landlord / You don't need to hang your hat on belief in bumper stickers / There will be no love lost just pull on that ripcord / Isn't this world enough?"

Sarah Hayes

Tom Gibbs

The fact that it is a great sing-a-long number with an infectious rolling hand clap back beat and trembling organ notes makes this a great song. It has already become a favourite with the band's following and on the night the audience joined in on the chorus with gusto. There was also a guest appearance by Tom Gibbs, a young English-born, Glasgow-resident pianist who helped out on keyboards allowing Sarah Hayes to give the accordion a work out! 

Kevin Brolly

So, if you like good "orchestral indie pop" and haven't yet heard of Admiral Fallow, then I would highly recommend that you check them out and, as the set list below highlights, they have some cracking songs set to some fascinating tunes. One final, and sadly somewhat negative point, just as in the Barrowlands, I was saddened to note that during the quieter passages (and given the style of music there are a number of them) many in the audience seemed perfectly happy to chat and spoil the atmosphere. Ho hum, nought as queer as folk, as they say!

Philip Hague

Gig started at 22:05

Tree Bursts

Beetle In The Box

The Paper Trench

These Barren Years

Guest of the Government

Isn't This World Enough?? 

Burn

Four Bulbs

Brother

Old Balloons

The Way You Were Raised

Encore

Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears

Gig ended at 23:10