Past Performances

On Friday night, there was a small gathering at the home of our pals Helen and Bruce. As ever, thanks so much to Helen and Bruce for the outstanding hospitality. The music in the evening was provided by an Alexa device, you know the little black thing that you ask to play this or that, or tune in to a particular radio station. I spared the company my usual joke of asking Alexa to go down the shop and get me ten fags and a box of matches, then declaring that the machine doesn’t work when it fails to do so. I think that one might be wearing a little thin. Anyway, at one point in the evening, we took turns to name the first music gig we had been to, and asked Alexa to play something by the performers.

My first gig was Curved Air at the Kinema Ballroom, Dunfermline, October 1971. As I recall it was great fun, but the volume of the sound was deafening. I still had ringing in my ears the following morning. Alexa played the number Vivaldi from the album Airconditioning, and the company were a bit puzzled, as it didn’t sound my sort of thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA1bp-1650o

I explained that this was on the Back Street Luv tour, and the event had been very much a rock gig, and got Alexa to play Back Street Luv. The company were still nonplussed. The band were very impressive musically, although this was before they were joined by the more famous Stewart Copeland  (later with The Police)on drums and Eddie Jobson (later with Roxy Music and Frank Zappa) on violin. And we fifteen-year-old lads thought the singer, Sonja Kristina, quite a stunner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT7e1X4mHV8

Going to a rock concert was a rare event when I was at school, so I remember pretty much all that I attended as special occasions. I saw Roxy Music on both the For Your Pleasure and Stranded tours, and they were memorable experiences. On the first occasion, there were two support acts: Lloyd Watson and the amazing Sharks, who included Andy Fraser on bass and keyboards and the legendary guitarist Chris Spedding.  Also in my last year at school, I saw John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. By heaven, that performance was hard work for the audience.

After the first gig exercise, we had another round of music, just nominating a number from any band we had seen live. I recalled a show at George Square Theatre in Edinburgh, which I saw during Fresher’s Week in October 1974, by a band that if you remember them at all, you probably think of as the epitome of naffness: Sailor. In fact, the concert was great fun, and if I saw it again now, I would still find it great fun. Have a listen to this, but first, there is a warning similar to those you see on Talking Pictures TV: this song contains outdated attitudes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQYG0fkx8b8

One issue which we didn’t broach was favourite ever gigs. This is a reasonable omission, since I suspect if the rest of the company were anything like me, they would find it difficult to choose. My shortlist would include: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh in 1976; Captain Beefheart several times in the 1970’s; The Men they Couldn’t Hang in Cambridge in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s; Van Morrison at the Dominion in London in the early 1980’s; Alison Krauss and Union Station at the Festival Hall about 2011; Moishe’s Bagel at the Junction in Cambridge a couple of times in the twenty-teens.

I think the one that stays with me most persistently, however, is a band I saw at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 1996. They were a Québecois outfit called La Bottine Souriante. I think they were billed as a Cajun band but with a brass section, which is a reasonable description but doesn’t do justice to their style. I think they were an nine-piece outfit at that time, fronted by a pantomime Frenchman with luxuriant, Hercule-Poirot style moustaches, and playing what seemed to be the world’s smallest accordion. His stage patter between songs seemed stereotypical: ‘Well, ze sun is shining and we are ‘aving ze good time…’ But the music was amazing. Both Bill (two years old, sitting on my shoulders and clapping his hands in ecstasy) and myself were absolutely bowled over. I don’t know whether it is just the Québec dialect, but it sounds like people singing French in Glasgow accents. Stick with the following until the end to get the impressive instrumentalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dwenbu1RhM4&list=RDEMAPEEN9sFRHxEL2TZg9-xPA&index=3

I think one reason I included the Alison Krauss concert in the shortlist above (apart from the fact that it was very good) is that I attended that one with my old pals from school, Kevin and Frank. These reunions don’t happen all that often and I value them so much. The three of us are getting together in May to see Richard Thompson at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge. Should be fun.

Epilogue

This week I purchased a senior citizen’s railcard and obtained my concessionary bus pass. The former gives me around a third off the price of off-peak rail tickets and the latter allows me free bus travel all over England, with only a couple of exceptions. So if I wish, I can spend a lot of my retirement on public transport. I can ride around all day on the bus, sitting upstairs reading the Daily Herald and sucking Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls…

                                            Kevin, Frank and myself in 2008