There Goes the Neighbourhood

My best mate in the whole world just got his own lj.

Wit, raconteur, bon viveur and first class wordslinger, yes, even if you are all of these things you still need a friend like

http://billking1959.livejournal.com/

S'Right.

(Well done on that obscure user name, guy),

With Strings Attached

I went off to a gig at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow last night. The Concert Hall is a cool venue, if a bit sit-downy: good site lines, excellent acoustics, non-sticky carpets - a good place to see Jackson Browne, probably not so good for the Pogues.

I'd also forgotten that being run by the District Council, it has some absolutely great art on show from the City's collection. I had time to catch up with three great and huge canvases by Ken Currie http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~media/kcurrie.html (no, not that Glasgow History mural, but a lovely piece of work), Peter Howson's "My Great Heart" (used as the front cover of The Beautiful South's "Quench" CD
and Adrian Wiszniewski (http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/aotm/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=156 no, not this one either, but the accurately named "Concert Hall Painting".)

Three of my favourite Glasgow artists on the same wall. Anyway, that wasn't why I'd come...

The concert was advertised as "With String's Attached", and featured one of Scotland's best fiddle bands, Blazing Fiddles, with three guest singers - Justin Currie, Eddie Reader and Colin MacIntyre http://www.mullhistoricalsociety.com/ (I'm getting fed up pasting in links so from now on you can Google!).

My views on Eddie Reader are well known - I'd swim through blood to hear her. Less well known is that I'm a huge Del Amitri fan, and my admiration for The Mull Historical Society is practically covert. Fiddle music I prefer with a whisky in my hand and a kilt on, but I was prepared to give it a go.

I'm glad I did. To my surprise, as well as the seven members of Blazing Fiddles there was a horn section, double bass and viola, two drum kits, and various electric and acoustic guitars scattered around the stage. The opening number passed solos from the fiddles to the trombone and trumpet, to the viola and back to the fiddles in fine and rather jazzy style, and the smile it put on my face rarely left it for the next couple of hours.

The format was a tune or two from the band, and then a song or two from one of the singers, and then back to the band. Each of the singers gave us at least one new song, and a few of their older pieces. I was especially glad to hear "This Side of the Morning", "Spit in the Rain" and "Nothing Ever Happens" live again. Currie was in fine voice, and looking very dapper in a suit - he was introduced as "The Housewives Choice" and "A Gay Icon" to much hilarity from the band. He said he'd kill to be a gay icon. His new song, "No, Surrender" was a long and wordy rant against everything from creeping capitalism to hypocritical politicians. Eddie sang "Town Without Pity", "Footsteps", "All or Nothing" and a rousing version of "The Swimming Song", as well as a new song called "Galileo Boy" (I think).

I'd been worried that the old songs might come across as a bit of a nostlagia-fest, but the fact that Justin and Eddie were in better voice than ever, and, probably more, the way the songs were re-interpreted by the band, raised this far above an Eighties revival.

Colin said he was using the occassion to sing songs he wouldn't usually sing, so I didn't recognise them - but one, "I've Been Burnt" which he said he would probably record for his next album, is a sure fire number one if it gets released as a single. Colin was the biggest surprise for me - never having seen him live, I'd thought he'd be a weedy wee synthesiser boy. In fact he comes over like James Blunt on speed, or Michael Stipe with curly hair. He bopped around the stage in fine style, pogoing and climbing on chairs and played his his whisky glass with a drumstick as part of the encore with shattering affect.

I've bought a CD by Blazing Fiddles (The Magnificent Seven) on the strength of the gig, and if there's a bootleg out there. I'd love to know about it.

Six Nations - Surprises Galore

1	France	5	4	0	1	148	85	8
2	Ireland	5	4	0	1	131	97	8
3	Scotland	5	3	0	2	78	81	6
4	England	5	2	0	3	120	106	4
5	Wales	5	1	1	3	80	135	3
6	Italy	5	0	1	4	72	125	1

Not exactly the table I expected at the end of the championship. Obviously England's poor showing was a surprise, but I think Ireland, Scotland and Italy can all take something away from this season's encounters. 

Scotland's result on Saturday against Italy surprised me as much as their victories over England and France, and their poor performance against Irealand (the spirited loss against Wales after having a player sent off early in the game must go down as a "What-if", and a missed opportunity). The game against Italy on Saturday would have been very easy to lose - indeed, I think the BBC's pundits were unanimous in predicting an Italian victory. I expected Scotland to be shaky, and the weakness of their line-out to be enough to give Italy the edge. In the end, the line out was almost completely solid, and the nerves didn't seem to appear at all. It was that rarest of things from a Scotland team, a calm, professional performance where they did just enough to win. 

I won't puff too hard here, yet, but there are green shoots of a Scottish sporting resurgence showing this year, between the Rugby, Scotland's excellent showing at the Commonwealth Games, Andy Murray's saunter up the tennis world rankings, and even some decent displays by the Scottish football team (friendlies aside!). 

It would be nice to think that the days when we could have 136,000 supporters at Hampden Park to watch Celtic play Leeds could come back.

Work update

I won't be going to Bangalore, then.