So, finally got that darn 10th birthday show out of the way!
I was a wee bit up to my eyes in it to actually do a review, which is fairly poor form given that we were celebrating 10 years of, well, reviewing, but that’s often the way… I was diving about too much myself and worrying about stuff that was already taken care of (see thankyous at the bottom!).

We See Lights were great, sounding very tight, surprising given they never play – seems like I’ve been at every one of their (2) shows in the past couple of years. Their temp bassist slotted in seamlessly – oddly the regular member Steven was actually at the show, briefly, but ‘on sabbatical’, finishing a dissertation and getting married in the next 2 weeks, so probably the intensive rehearsals would have been too much.

Adam Thompson… well, we know he has a great voice already. The most amazing thing was how he silenced the crowd given he was basically acoustic/unplugged… not seen him do the solo thing before – well, I think I caught him do a couple of songs somewhere, but this was a full set, with ‘It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning’ and ‘This Is My House’, This Is My Home’. Were there any new ones? Anyone? There was something I didn’t recognise. Should have pulled rank and got a setlist…

ballboy – I should certainly have pulled rank here, but didn’t really need to. With such a back catalogue it’s always nice to be surprised by whatever Gordon and co pull out of the hat, but certainly starting with ‘Donald In the Bushes With A Bag of Glue’ was a great start, appropriate given it’s 10+ years old. Got at least one newie, not National Trust which is on the podcast, but… again, a setlist would have been a good idea! We got ‘I Don’t Have Time To Stand Here…’ and a very amusing explanation of how someone can be half mermaid (a temporal thing apparently), musings on male/female multitasking (Gordon could do standup easily). From the more recent material we got ‘Empty Throat, my favourite tune from the I Worked On The Ships album, and ‘A Relatively Famous Victory’, and to end, ‘Leave The Earth Behind’ I think (see below), which also came from a confession that they had stolen the idea of holding up phones (in lieu of lighters) at the bit where a feeling of uplifted euphoria would take over all bar the most dead-inside, vinegar-factory-owning Tory voters (I assume there were none in as we have a very strict door policy). Anyway, it morphed into East 17’s festive hit ‘Stay Another Day’ and the phones went up. Apparently Alexa reckoned it could be brilliant or shit but her fears were unfounded.

I was lucky enough to be at the soundcheck where Gordon did a version of Eggs 1993 #10 with a bullet (in the Festive 50) ‘Government Administrator’ – this was the planned encore, but such were the calls for ‘Public Park’ that it was superseded. I’m happy, I got to hear both, and – apart for maybe ‘I Hate Scotland’, or ‘A Day In Space’, ‘Sash’, ‘All The Songs On The Radio’, or… er, anyway, I can’t think of a better way to end what was probably the perfect gig.

Thanks to everyone involved – the bands, Tallah from the EC who as working her backside off, and El who was freezing on the door dispensing cakes, JP, who was DJing rather than doing any proper work for once, Scott from Frightened Rabbit, his co-DJ, soundguy Jake (think that’s right) who did a great job, and anyone who gave us a plug in the run-up to the gig – which apart from (bizarrely) The Scotsman who mentioned the show FOUR times – Radar (twice), Under The Radar, and a piece I got to write myself in their Arts blog) very few plugs in the press. Though Tom Morton gave us a shout and obviously Jim Gellatly‘s Amazing Radio piece. (I was told that The Big Issue had a piece in but looks like there’s no seller in leafy Linlithgow at the moment; I’d love to think they’ve found a house/job).
And Song by Toad and Jock’n’Roll. Oh, and my own show at Radiomagnetic, which has some good rarities from all 3 bands on it. No reviews in yet but some cracking photos of the night at www.davidpscott.co.uk.

And some more images in the slideshow, – good ones are by Sue, scaby grainy ones are mine – and video of Adam, and of Ballboy’s last tune including Gordon’s ramble/rant as mentioned earlier (both filmed by one of itm?’s long-standing photographers Andrew McKenna, who was on his night off…)

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.