Live Review: Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls

Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls

Edinburgh Corn Exchange

Sat 8th Feb 2014

The former front-man for post hardcore band Million Dead has been enthralling audiences across the UK since going solo in 2005. His semi-acoustic folk/punk tunes have earned him a fanatical following and a rags to semi- riches level of mainstream success - an incredible achievement to have made without the advantage of a hit single to piggy-back in on - and only the most vindictive and envious of people would  deny him that. With his songs now firmly entrenched in the ‘Englishness’ of his poetic observations he  is a wordsmith of the highest order accentuating this modern culture of ours with astonishing clarity. 

The thundering roar that  snapped Edinburgh Corn Exchange into life as Frank Turner and his band The Sleeping Souls walked on stage is as significant of his popularity these days as the fact this gig has sold out is! He smiles, raises his arms and launches the evening with the stomping catchiness of Photosynthesis an energetic anthem about how society expects us to embrace the confines of adulthood and act our age. He incites the crowd to join in on it’s chant-along chorus…and they sing, with endearing petulance…’I wont sit down, and I wont shut up, and most of all I will not grow up!’  The reflective angst of ‘Plain Sailing Weather is followed by the powerful homage to his late grandmother ’Peggy Sang The Blues’  and, on the melancholic ‘Losing Days’ when he sings ‘and all these small ideas are suddenly commitments as greatness slips on by’ you are reminded once again of the stunning poetics he chronicles his feelings with. 

The incredible high spirited energy of a Frank Turner performance is well documented but you really have to be among it to comprehend it. The adrenalized enthusiasm he delivers every song with has a compelling dynamic and there’s a definite camaraderie between him and the audience. Tonight is no different, he cajoles and he interjects with incredible charisma and continues to serenade them  with the songs they have adopted as their very own including ‘Reasons Not To Be An Idiot‘ ‘Wessex Boy’, ‘If Ever I Stray’ and ‘The Road’  The stirring proclamations of ‘Eulogy’ just beg to be collectively roared and it was never going to be anything other than that -  this most rowdiest of choirs did it justice and volleyed it skywards, three thousand voices as one ,,,’Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut, not everyone was born to be a king, not everyone can be Freddie Mercury, but everyone can raise a glass and sing. Well I haven’t always been a perfect person, and I haven’t done what mum and dad had dreamed, but on the day I die, I’ll say at least I fucking tried, that’s the only eulogy I need’. 

From celebratory to deep reflection as the opening chords of the devastatingly poignant ‘Long Live The Queen’ written about his friend Lexi who died from breast cancer - it’s a fast paced celebration of her life as much as it is a memorial of sadness which is played tonight with added rock song edginess slowing down for reflection just briefly as he sings ‘we live to dance another day, its just now we have to dance for one more of us’, so stop looking so damn depressed, sing with all our hearts. long live the queen’. The mesmerising ‘Broken Piano’ is the last song,  it’s haunting finale a solitary pounding drum beat remains until everything else has been silenced….

They return to the stage for a 3 song encore of ‘The Ballad Of Me And My Friends’, ‘I Still Believe’, and ‘Four Simple Words’ then they’re gone. 

Frank Turner gets his attitude and cynicism from punk rock and his poetic conscience from the soul of folk music. His fans are sincere in their admiration committing every song to memory just to howl each one back at him word for actual word. It’s a genuine regard for someone who gives just as much of himself in return. The energy liberated by his annihilation of complacency is bestowed to them.

He deserves his glories!

Thanks to Lou at Partisan PR

Photography: Emma T

Written by: Alan Baillie

Published at Subba Cultcha.

http://frank-turner.com/

Live Review: Sad Society (From My Archives)

Sad Society

Bannermans, Edinburgh

23rd Jan 2009

Sad Society, third band of the evening, have been a perpetual inclusion on the punk circuit since their formation in the early 80’s. Their catchy old-school anthems and chant-along chorus-lines bring an incendiary rapture to the Bannermans crowd, as opener ‘Novocaine’ quite quickly demonstrated. It’s a ferocious, unswerving set with Deek Wilson (possibly the second most-recognised front-man in Edinburgh?) guiding each song with typical sarcasm and derision. Through ‘Presidents Of Fear’, ‘Slaughterhouse’ and the melancholic observations of the atmospheric ‘Suicide Party’ they donate an atmosphere relished by a crowd who are so fond of this band they know every song word-for-word. Many old favourites, including ‘No More U.S Laws’ inculcate a camaraderie throughout the room, never more apparent than on ‘Religion’, possibly the most perfect song ever written for the genre of punk rock. Deek’s sneering ‘and I’m not fucking satisfied’ lyric is a master of incensed articulation. Sad Society could quite easily have slotted into tonight’s headline position without effort, but the noteworthy thing about them, and the majority of bands involved in the healthy scene Edinburgh has, is that they have no elitist snobbery; they’re just happy doing what they came together to do: play the music they believe in for the people who share that belief."

*Published In Music News Scotland*

Photography: Michael Laing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/punkrocksuperstar63/

Sad Society Page

SXPP Punk All Dayer: Live Review

SXPP ALL DAYER

STUDIO 24

EDINBURGH

Edinburgh promoters SXPP, responsible for bringing many notable punk bands to the capital at weekends, further enhanced that service today with a formidable line-up that brimmed with unquestionable strengths and individuality. For over 12 hours the crowd at Studio 24 basked in the searing climate of visceral kindredship and celebration.

I was fashionably late, as always, which, regrettably, resulted in me missing CRITIKILL and HAPPY SPASTICS, the two bands I really did want to see! I did however manage to catch the last 3 songs from the enthusiastically energetic THE MURDERBURGERS and I couldn’t have probably found a better band to start my day with. Their furious pop/punk proficiency was delivered with a tight composure and distinctive style.

Supervened by ACID TONGUE, the hardcore Fife outfit who never fail to disappoint in any situation - and today was no exception. Their hard-hitting, sometimes political brand of punk is much favoured on the live scene. They have a unique identity and concentrated belief in what they sing about. LOWLIFE UK were glorious and, in my opinion, the band of the day! They were charismatic and posses that working class intellect which defines punk rock. Their songs are frantic and the energy levels they conjure are delirious. They also showed an ability to not take themselves too seriously. This band are capable of creating a good night out. 

DOGSFLESH were a heaving vehicle of hardcore mayhem. What you got is what you saw and they deliver it the way they create it - without instruction or compliance. Tonight they exploded on stage and never reduced their vehement onslaught once! Following them 3CR,  the Manchester rebel rousing proscribers who posses some of the hookiest offensive songs in existence. But it’s jagged and raw and intelligently entwined with 3 chord mastery and they made everyone here tonight very fuckin happy. It’s conclusive that INSTANT AGONY are very good. Again they delivered a wealth of songs that can lift the corners from roofs until the sky bleeds and showers those below in the congealed sonance inflicted plasma. I somehow ended up next to their speakers for the whole set - and could hear nobody but them until Tuesday lunchtime!! French band ANTI CLOCKWISE were a manifestation of prodigious instinct and  presence tonight. It’s almost like they cherry-picked their greatest moments and threw the whole lot at us. Faultless and lavish to the extent of rakish libertines. They are an undoubtedly ferocious live band.  THE FIEND and KEYSIDE STRIKE were both as incendiary and thrilling as is expected from any band at this stage of an alldayer. Tragically, or stupidly, I missed DEMOB by about 15 minutes, and I’ve no idea how or why! I have no good reason to offer and nobody else to blame - I don’t think!

Entrusted with bringing proceedings to a majestic end were today’s headliners UK SUBS. Though today wasn’t the original line up that began over 30 years ago - Charlie Harper still leads from the front. Should you ever need examples of a value for money punk band then UK SUBS will always tick the boxes! I’ve saw them many times and again tonight they were indefectible and outstanding! They done it so powerfully they surely moved Studio 24 in its foundations enough to create it a new map reference. If Carlsberg made fitting ends………

Although today’s crowd was disappointingly low - which was hopefully less to do with apathy and more to do with it being Sunday - there was no lack of spirit and delectation among those who were here. Should this event become an annual affair it’s probably an odds on certainty that there won’t be as much room at the inn next time!

SXPP HOMEPAGE

Photographs: Larry at SXPP

Live Review: Pete Doherty.

Pete Doherty

Liquid Room

Edinburgh

21/09/11

the man with the soul of a busking poet returns 

Wearing a black suit but no trademark trilby hat Pete Doherty strolls onstage, picks up his acoustic guitar and, beneath stark unfussy violet lights begins his solo set as casually as if he’d just stopped for a 15 minute break before coming back out to pick up from where he’d previously finished. Only the reaction of the crowd - all screams and cheers - suggest his time away from this city has been so much longer than that - and tonight they were happy to see him back. He’s stirred up more hysterical media hype throughout his career than anyone else and split public opinion as fervently as any insincere politician might. His recent jail sentence for cocaine possession only chucked up another fresh source of nourishment for the frenzied to feast on. His intelligence, natural gifts and poetic intuition have endured long spells subdued by his addictions while his ego took off with Kate Moss for a while. Tonight all we can do is wait to see just how much of him has come back from the wreckage.

Swaying as he sings his way through ‘The Bowery Song’ his eyes barely lifting upwards he wheels away from the mic to face the wall before quickly strumming a chord change into gear and spinning back round to head straight into ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’ from his Libertines legacy and suddenly the Liquid Room has joined him - a full voiced choir - ‘cornered, the boy kicked out at the world, the world kicked back a lot fucking harder’ as he paces and steps the stage, singing with them, then dropping away again as they sing and he plays - a guitarist in a band of several hundred frontmen. He refrains from speaking between songs but still charms without trying , strumming out random chords before quickly changing the structure and breaking into another song. He’s aimlessly cool,  it catches them by surprise and they roar approval every time. He continues the journey through his Libertines, Babyshambles and solo work effortlessly and his volleying vocal on ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’ drops and yelps and soars with perfection. The surreal bohemia of two ballet dancers gliding across the stage during ‘For Lovers’ reminds you just how creative the mind of Pete Doherty is. Bringing the song to its end all three bow theatrically to their audience before he fires onwards with a frenetic ‘Killamangiro’ followed by ‘Beg Steal Or Borrow’.


He stays with the older songs, ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’ and the biggest cheer of the night is kept for  Libertines catchy chant-along favourite ‘What A Waster’ the audience feverishly singing along with him as the line ‘get back inside you’ve got nothing on, oh mind yer bleeding own you 2 bob cunt’  fills the room. He continues, repeating the lyric ’2 bob’  over and over just so everyone can sing ‘cunt’ repeatedly. He’s spent the whole gig swaying and prowling the stage, spinning around and walking away, strumming random half tunes and changing the pace of songs midway. Wheeling his acoustic guitar up from his waist to his chest, playing one handed, jabbing it forwards or stopping completely. The last few songs are again pulled from his Libertines era and include ‘What Katie Did Next’ with its catchy ’shoop shoop shoop de lang de lang’ harmonies  and ‘Time For Heroes’. His debut solo single, the harmonica laden ‘Last Of The English Roses’ is next up before he finishes back in the past again with ‘I Get Along’ A fight breaks out at the side of the stage just as he brings the gig to an end. Security mop up the mouthy ones in less than 2 minutes, a perfectly timed operation indeed as Pete Doherty returns to the stage. He grabs the mic and announces ‘That’s your lot, it’s time to go, there will be no encore’. He smiles, picks up his guitar and kicks straight into ‘Fuck Forever’ As some of the crowd appear onstage beside him security quickly pull them down only for another lot to appear in their place, and again a third time.  It was all very jubilant and celebratory as they bounced and sang along with him, this man that they’d all came to watch, this man who hadn’t let them down once tonight, this man who had played a blinder here and was a joy to witness. He brings the song to an end, unstraps his guitar and holds it above his head for a few seconds as if celebrating a victory,  quickly smiles and throws it into the crowd. By the time they look back up he’s gone.

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Photographs by Suzanne Hancock

Glasvegas Live Review (from my archives)

Glasvegas

Liquid Room

Edinburgh

March 1st 2011

Things could have went either way for Glasvegas between 2008 and now. A platinum selling debut album, a fan base that stretched from Glasgow to god knows where and, as if that wasn’t enough, the press proclaimed them ‘the most significant British band of the decade’, passed them the captains arm band and sent them out to show the rest of the world just what all the fuss was about. That kind of overwhelming pressure would possibly cripple most bands lacking the artillery required to live up to such critical acclaim but, as history did record, Glasvegas played the countless blinders of the gifted, weaving their way around the potential banana skins of hype to emerge at this end nearly two and a half years later hardly troubled. These days they don’t have to prove themselves to anyone. Their second album ‘EUPHORIC/HEARTBREAK\\’ (an italicised torment for any grammar pedant surely)  was road tested early January with a series of low key gigs in remote Scottish towns and villages and the reaction has been pleasing. So…new album, new songs, new drummer (Jonna Lofgren in for the departed Caroline McKay) and a new decade…..

Ditching the black clothes that had for so long been ‘his look’ Glasvegas front-man James Allen leads his band onstage for tonight’s sold out gig dressed entirely in white - an image from which the cultivation could either be symbolic or whimsical, I wouldn’t know, but the thundering collective roar that welcomed their arrival from a crowd who’ve packed this venue to it’s capacity is a sure sign, regardless of who’s wearing what and why, that Glasvegas are a band that matter to these people. Opening song ‘The World Is Yours’ is raucous rock & roll with a guitar driven seam and shuddering bassline unlike anything they’ve done before. The drumbeat, much heavier and more defined than it’s ever been suggests a definite shift in musical direction from the wall of sound style they employed on previous material. As the opening chords of ‘Geraldine’ ring out inciting  celebratory bedlam and the first of tonight’s crowd sing-alongs it’s obvious how much the older songs are still wanted as they tear the words from the mouth of James Allen before he’s had the chance to sing them - and he allows them this - happily staying quiet as they take it for their own, before re-joining the song with them through the last chorus and end. Staying with the older material, his soaring lead vocals during ‘It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry’- the self wounding confessional of a cheating bastard coughing up his guilt- crack in the air as he sings ‘it’s funny how me fucking her about has got me in this fucking mess’, before it’s seized upon by the crowd and launched to football terrace proportions as they sing with him ‘what’s the story morning glory, I feel so low and worthless, yeahhhhh’. Once again the way he wrings a song of epic proportions from the bones of normality and human nature is an outstandingly poetic event.

New song ‘Shine Like Stars’ is followed by another fond look backwards with old songs ‘Polmont On My Mind’ and the poignantly heartfelt ‘Flowers And Football Tops’ - a song about the death of a child from the perspective of the mother - which is tonight fittingly stripped of all instrumental contribution except for a haunting solitary keyboard and lead vocal so gentle it’s more a ghostly scrape along a surface heavy with grief. It could be the desperate cries of any parent in the world heard grappling with heartache in the line ‘my baby is 6 feet under/ just another number/ my daughter without her brother. A performance so mesmerising the Liquid Rooms is reduced to silence. A loud, energetic cover of The Korgis hit ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime’ is followed by another crowd favourite ‘Go Square Go’ with its repeated refrain ‘here we, here we, here we fucking go’ being, as expected, the loudest sung lines of the evening. Ending, pre encore, on new single ‘Euphoria, Take My Hand’ before coming back out for ‘Daddy’s Gone’ and ‘Ice Cream Van’. As they left the stage for the final time the crowd were still chanting for more. They hung around...not wanting to move away...just incase... but they didn‘t come back. They didn’t come because it never hurts to leave an audience wanting more.

Written by Alan Baillie for SUBBA CULTCHA

Photographs by Suzanne Hancock

Thanks to Tilly Knowles at The Charm Factory

GLASVEGAS OFFICIAL

Live Review: The Wickerman Festival 2010

The perfect jewel in Scotland’s alternative crown

With less  corporate thuggery at its helm than others I could mention, The Wickerman Festival will always captivate a far from maddening crowd. Sure, they just may get a little rowdy at 4am when stumbling around in the wrong campsite shouting like drunken foghorns through the mist as they attempt to locate each other, which will always be to the annoyance of the less than tolerant minority slumbering in their tented palaces upon the hill. But that’s possibly the very worst that ever happens and it beats having your tent stolen or being caught up in a platoon of rioting neds. This is the festival with the retro vibe snaking right through to its heart where things feel spontaneous rather than planned. The alternative festival catering for alternative tastes, just like it promised on the tin. The presence of mainstream here is conspicuous only by its most beautiful absence. Modern day counter-culture movement it sure is. As if the gods would ever not be smiling down on us - it’s blazing sunshine and the bluest skies as the 9th Wickerman Festival begins, and for the briefest of moments you wonder if it’s the forces of nature we should be thanking. Of course it’s not! Bring on the individualists!

Friday

You’d turn yourself inside out in the effort to see every single band playing here. See, you want to see them all, because they’re more than worth that, but with over 130 of them playing well it just aint possible guvnor! I tried it once - chasing my tail for 12 hours  - I doubled back on myself so severely I missed most and had to get a taxi to my tent where I did descend into dizziness for the duration. You gotta be brutal then - you gotta schedule things, be firm and choose one over the other. Crossing off lists until you end up with a timetable that shall be your map for the weekend. Yes, until the aforementioned schedule becomes a crumpled bit of paper stuffed into a corner of your rucksack never to be considered or even consulted again! So just live in the moment and do it how you see fit.

Root System: The ska/punks from Fife are much favoured among Wickerman goers and are a regular ingredient in The Scooter Tent, Today they were an instant burst of vitality. The energy and spirit unleashed would possibly generate enough kilowatts of power to kick-start a dead man back to life. They are a solid wall of ska beats infused dramatically with punk rock’s urgency triggering mass enthusiasm in the crowd which, eventually, evolved in to a frenzied abandonment. On songs like ‘Revolution’ and ‘Take It Easy’ they had this corner of the festival on it’s feet as soon as their first note was played. The crowd seized upon them immediately, let this be evidence of how good this band really are.

Ed Tudor Pole: He has such a gallivanting restlessness that it always seems as if he’s on the absolute verge of breaking down into a perplexing muddle! The cartoon-like demeanour and natural eccentricities he has makes him totally spellbinding to watch. Of course he has the great songs to enhance his status - and he played the greatest ones today. Ten Pole Tudor’s back catalogue, including the brilliant b-side ‘Love And Food’ were rolled out in great health and sounding better than they ever did, his singing voice veering from a cracked yelp to deep rambling. His defining moment in my opinion came when a shouter in the audience asked for Who Killed Bambi ( the song he wrote during his brief time with The Sex Pistols) and the big man replied ‘ never mind who killed bambi, who killed Malcolm Mclaren’  Ed Tudor Pole is a stately home built on a council estate and I love him!

The Futureheads: Just one of tonight’s Main Stage artists that I didn’t get the chance to see much of but what I did see of the new wave/post punk experimentalists was utterly standout. Front man Barry Hyde is a charismatic rabble rouser completely tailor-made at birth for the job he does. I caught them doing last single ‘ I Can Do That’, plus one other that I hadn’t heard before, and they completely filled the place and probably the surrounding countryside with their powerful sound. Ever seen a field undulating with rollicking human beings? Shoulda been there then!

Teenage Fanclub: Not everyone’s choice but Teenage Fanclub are legends of the Scottish indie scene. I haven’t ever seen them live before and, regardless of how great or not so, I was at least determined to say I’ve now seen them. They have been nurtured over the years by a very committed fan base who can see nothing beyond them and it’s always very much like that in Scotland ( Trashcan Sinatras are another who earn the same treatment) Tonight ‘the fannies’,( which is how I heard several people refer to them as and is obviously a term of endearment rather than the stinging insult I first considered it might be), sounded as good as you’d expect they might be for a band who’ve been doing it more than 20 years. Their sound is very much the chime and jangle type of indie and it did sound pretty special tonight. Among their set list was ‘Everything Flows’ ‘Sparky’s Dream’ and ‘Baby Lee’.

The Buzzcocks Headliners in The Scooter Tent and I’m told they pulled the biggest crowd of the weekend in there. Tonight I declare The Buzzcocks stunning! They still have that rawness and the songs are still brilliant - 36 years later! With Pete Shelley still fronting and Steve Diggle back on guitar this was classic old school jubilation. For a couple of geezers well into their 50’s they ripped the place apart unleashing song after song from their magnificent legacy. You name it, they played it - ‘Orgasm Addict’ ‘What Do I Get’ ‘Ever Fallen In Love’ and ‘I Don’t Mind’ among others. The Scooter Tent was bouncing inside, and, outside where just as many couldn’t get in, were bouncing too. I heard a few people complain that The Buzzcocks should have played Main Stage so everyone could get the chance to see them which is fair enough, but I can’t help thinking an atmosphere like the one they created tonight would be lost if it was transferred outside.

The Charlatans: Veterans of the Madchester scene are Main Stage closers for Friday night. With an earlier promise to play ‘just one from the new album’ ( which I think they kept to) the majority of their set felt entirely familiar. As August shall be the 20th anniversary of their debut album (Some Friendly) they quite rightly dipped into the track listing of it tonight. For a band who can occasionally flicker between really good and really average they were closer to the ‘really good’ version of themselves this time and the crowd they drew filled the whole field and its perimeters, not to mention the ever growing mosh pit at the front. The Charlatans were psychedelic and they were shoegazey and they were rock and roll personified, hurtling through the songs which included ‘Jesus Hairdo’ ‘Can’t Get Out Of Bed’ ‘Weirdo’ ‘How High’ and that new one they said they’d play ‘Love Is Ending’ ( which is also the new single) they were pretty flawless and gave as good an account of themselves as anyone else did and are clearly embracing this reawakening they seem to be going through.

Other artists who played Friday include Goldie Lookin Chain, Tony Christie, Counterfeit Clash, Back To The Planet, Mitchell Museum and many more.

I was so late back to my tent even the sparrows were looking at me with their little legs folded and their heads shaking, and they’d be saying ( no seriously bear with me on this one) ‘Every year,eh! returning not just in daylight but ‘broad fucking daylight’, tssssk’  But I never answer them, I’m too clever, and they hate to be ignored. As do the starlings!

Wickerman Saturday see’s a huge influx of new arrivals, the ‘one day only’ ticket holders who’ve come to see the bands and watch the ceremonial torching of the 30ft Wickerman at midnight. Today the sun has gone and the stop/start rain has galloped in from the west (possibly) just to poke at the psyche of those who haven’t slept all night. I get the ‘scruffy/tired’ award for the 7th year running. Am I bothered? Am I bothered?

Saturday

Doll & The Kicks: Morrissey’s little favourites played an excellent 45 minute set in The Scooter Tent, shamefully I only saw the last 10 mins but they showed just why they were hand picked by Morrissey as support act on his 2008/09 European/Russian Tour. He described them as ‘very powerful, very unusual and very striking’ and the man’s never wrong.

The Saw Doctors: It feels like the Irish rockers have been on the go forever but they only formed in 1986, positively fledglings in the great scheme of things. They enjoy cult following status in Ireland, and certain parts of America, a pleasure not quite granted to them in the UK really.They never quite broke through into the mainstream possibly because The Pogues had set a precedcent that was now to be expected of every Irish band since then. The Saw Doctors though were nothing like the drunken effigies  lyrically brought to life by Shane McGowan and his crew, instead they cornered the same kind of market inhabited by the Levellers, The Men They Couldn’t Hang and The Waterboys, though never as politically minded they did bear a Celtic likeness to the others, and it’s this genre they occupy, like it or not. They’re a great festival band though and first class audience communicators, which may not have suited the impersonal expanse of the Main Stage so much but credit to them they worked it as best they could and enticed a decent crowd to drop by.

PAMA INTERNATIONAL: Filling what must surely be the toughest slot of the day, The Scooter Tent gap between The Sex Pistols Experience and headliners The Undertones, penultimate headliners then, the ska/dub/reggae collective fronted by Lynval Golding ( The Specials) are no strangers to the gig circuit and certainly not phased by being the middle bit of a punk rock extravaganza when you’re not a punk rock band. Lesser men would have wilted at the very thought and died tragically in front of our very eyes as we watched their demise through the gaps in our splayed hands, the carnage viewable only in quick bursts of cameo. Not so Pama International, capable and gifted masters of their craft. With their musical influences steeped more in rock steady/ reggae than its  casual ska cousin this was a seasoned performance, a musical education by men educated in the music they play. It’s no casual throwaway performance but one created from the roots of their past and engineered by these modern troubadours. Addictive and deep rooted reggae beats which instantly stopped everything else in its tracks before claiming the Scooter Tent as theirs. Never mind punk rock, this hour was easily won by a much more ancient genre of music.

The Undertones: With original front man Feargal Sharkey long gone and replacement Paul McLoone at the mic for the last 11 years The Undertones have remained a constant presence barely missing a beat since 1975. True, the quivering vocal delivery of Sharkey no longer fills the rooms, but as far as getting as near to it as is possible, well McLoone manages that pretty well to be honest. Tonight he’s great, they’re great and that’s the opinion of every old school punk jammed into The Scooter Tent alongside me. From the very second they begin with ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ it’s non stop. It’s the most celebratory trawl through the best songs of a great era - and everything gets its chance to shine - ‘My Perfect Cousin ‘It’s Gonna Happen’ ‘Teenage Kicks’ ‘Here Comes The Summer’ and ‘Wednesday Week’ among them. It’s possibly what everyone here this weekend came to see.

Ocean Colour Scene: Although I missed the majority of their set ( bit of a wild card decision to put them on at the same time as The Undertones) what bits I did hear  sounded really good. It’s been a funny few years for Ocean Colour Scene after all the glories their first 2 albums brought them, they were the band of the hour when at their greatest level, but for whatever reason they failed to sustain it and very quickly disappeared into obscurity, and they’ve been down there a lot longer than is probably comfortable.  Credit to them though they’ve never shied away from putting in the spade work and they’re slowly pulling themselves back into view. Being the Main Stage headliners tonight is something I know they’ll be thrilled with, it’s a corner turned and a sure sign they’re on the climb again. A cover of The Beatles ‘Daytripper’ alongside their own ‘The Riverboat Song’ and ‘The Day We Caught The Train’ were among the songs they played.

Other artists who played Saturday included The Sex Pistols Experience, Sons & Daughters, Amphetameanies, The Go Team, and  many more

The highlight of the festival for many is this ritual torching of the 35ft willow effigy on the stroke of midnight. It’s believed to be a pagan practice carried out as a symbolic banishing of demons and evil - though much of the actual relevance is possibly lost in time somewhere. As the Wicker Man burns and the fireworks light the sky above so another festival prepares to pack itself away until next year. 2011 will be the 10th anniversary of The Wickerman Festival - they are already planning something special to commemorate that - so you don’t want to be elsewhere this time next year, you need to be right here. Anyway once you’ve been you’ll never stop coming back. I’ve been doing it for 8 years, you always come back. 

 And to quote the movie:  ‘Did I do it right?’  ‘You did it beautifully’

Thanks To Ross Weller and Laura Adams of 3x1 PR Glasgow

http://www.thewickermanfestival.co.uk/