My first visit to the Citz since it reopened. I was unsure where to park and how heavy the traffic would be, so my wife agreed to let us leave early. How serendipitous that was. The street I usually park in on that side of town was closed due to roadworks. As we drove about, I somehow managed to find my way to the theatre's car park, which still had spaces. I snagged one spot, and within seconds every other space was filled, as if someone was finishing off a jigsaw. I watched one car fly round the car park to catch the last space near the entrance, only for another car to sweep in, turn right and snatch it from them. I thought there might be some argy-bargy, but no. Fortunately, another car drove off, leaving the disappointed party contented.
Inside, the theatre looked gloriously modern, albeit with a few of the old touches, like the golden elephant-headed pillars.
Although we were early, the cafe was already full, so we waited near the entrance to the performance space until the doors opened. The ticket scanners couldn't have been working, because we were allowed in after a cursory inspection of our printout, even though he was holding the relevant device.
We were among the first to take our seats, but it didn't take long for trouble to occur. As the place filled up, a dispute occurred over seating and rather than establish whose tickets were genuine, the usher offered the standing party different seats. Unfortunately, this only exacerbated the problem when those ticket holders arrived to find someone in their seats. He moved them too, and so on and so on. Then, a couple of minutes before the advertised showtime, a large couple arrived to find their seats taken, and they refused to accept alternative seats. They demanded to be seated in the seats they had chosen. A standoff occurred. The usher had to summon the duty manager, but given the extent of the problem and the limited time available, she struggled to get to the bottom of it and gave up after investigating the first three seat relocations. Fortunately, the lads in the large couple's seats agreed to be relocated again. The question remains: why didn't the usher summon the duty manager in the first place?
Ah, the irony of this picture.
The support act was Mark's mate and podcast buddy, Danny Ward. Danny's humour is described as being "observational, upbeat and well-honed; his easy-going style is both endearing and very funny". What I observed tonight was neither endearing nor funny. In the room, the only laughter appeared to come from those programmed to laugh, Pavlovian style, at any post-punchline pause. His jokes are well-honed, but to the point where the humour has been pared away. His material was weak, and his delivery felt mechanical. I did not enjoy him.
Interval snacks - Guinness and ice cream: Well, it is the Gorbals on St Patrick's Day.
Mark's stage set includes a storage box (for his clipboard, notebooks, and a glass bowl filled with folded papers), a coatstand (bare), and a flipchart listing his set topics.
Fortunately, Mark knows how to craft and deliver a joke down to the nth degree. He'd also cleverly structured the show to avoid one-liner overload, introducing elements like Mind Reading and Magic between topics. Inevitably, these bits were setups for more jokes.
His longest joke involved recording the ages of most of the front two rows, then apologising for how long it took. "Sorry about that. Took ages." (wiggles eyebrows).
At the start of the show, he wore a tuxedo. Over the course of the evening, he took off his jacket, then his bowtie, swapped his brogues for trainers, his trousers for jogging bottoms and removed his shirt, revealing a vest, which he covered with a hoodie. I anticipated a punchline along the lines of "Got to jog off now. That's the end of the show." Then he'd turn back and say, "Did you like the running gag?" What he actually did was far cleverer.
Mark is a master of funny. Shame it hasn't rubbed off on his support act.
Ticket Price: £48.00 (for two tickets, includes a booking fee (£2) and venue fee (£2) per ticket) from SEE Tickets
Where do you go when a mate is in town, and you can't decide between a film or a comedy show? You head to King Tut's, obviously.
A week ago, I was completely unaware of this musical artist. Thanks to my Amazon Music subscription (other streamers are available), I was able to listen to her small back catalogue and make an educated decision over whether to check her out live. My mate did the same, using Spotify.
We both decided yes.
Someone loves playing with their fonts
Support act Mel Raeburn performed a thirty-minute set with her guitarist. She's infectiously exuberant, her voice is sweet like caramel, and with stronger songs, she could be very good. I liked her enough to film her cover of Rihanna's Love on the Brain (not a song I was familiar with). The rest of her set was original material.
Love on the Brain.
Next up was better joy.
If I were to compare the two singers, I'd say Mel is like your first school crush, and Bria is the girl you long to meet in your twenties. She's fun, gorgeous, talented and going places. One cheeky glance from those eyes and your heart goes all aflutter (or at my age, it may trigger a cardiac event). It was a pleasure to be in her company, albeit for only an hour (that might be misconstrued - I meant musically).
better joy - promo shot
The band had just flown in from Austin, where they had been performing at the SXSW Festival. The last time they played a headline gig in Glasgow, it was at the Garage Attic to about forty people. Tonight, King Tut's, while not sold out, was certainly packed. The crowd was most appreciative and covered a wide age range, from schoolkids to retirees like myself.
When you hear them play, you can understand why Bastille and Amy Macdonald approached Bria to be their tour support. This girl is developing into a fine artist. She's currently working on her debut album. We were treated to a raw version of a new song and were politely asked to put our cameras away. She had a few issues with her throat, sipping honey and lemon and coughing a bit, but it didn't affect her singing voice too much. Perhaps the odd note she took in a different direction.
After the show, she made her way quickly to the merch stall to meet her fans. The queue was so big that the staff had to ask people to move as they were blocking the stairs. We didn't wait, much as I'd love to meet her and get some merch signed.
Thank you to the man at the barrier who let me snap a photo of his setlist. You are a gentleman.
Setlist
this part of town
Situations
Big Thief
plugged in
couldn't run forever
quiet thing
steamroller
So Long
Wahooo
what a day
carnival
I'm There
waiting on time
Dead Plants
So long
Dead Plants
Ticket Price: 2 x £12.50 & Service Fee £2.50 & eTickets £0.00 = Total £27.50 from TicketWeb.
A bonus gig after we decided to bring forward Mother's Day for our respective parents. Despite the late purchase, we still managed to snag tickets for the middle of the Dress Circle.
No support act, just Bridget performing both Acts. At 54, she is thriving as a single divorcee, enjoying life, looking amazing in her black jeans, white t-shirt and showbiz leather jacket, complete with sleeve tassels. I couldn't see any reason why Stewart Lee wouldn't want to be with her, even with her kidney stones. Listening to her perform, it's easy to hear the distinct rhythm they share in their comedy.
In the first section, she had a good bit on imagining being friends with Melania Trump, taking her phone call and having to guess what her husband had done this time to upset her. Acting out the bit where an ex of hers requested she go cross-eyed to help him get off during intercourse was also hilarious, though the audience got so far ahead of her that she refused to say the punchline. The long-winded story from the friend who doesn't remember specifics and gets distracted by tangents finished the first act (which lasted thirty minutes, not twenty, as billed).
The broad audience demographic surprised me, everything from teens to pensioners, with no one group dominating. I put this down to the Taskmaster effect, with her appearing in series 13 of the show (2022).
The second half was amusing but not as funny, starting with a bit about the date who made her a dinner of a dry pizza base topped by a dry jacket potato, moving on to the gender politics of the Netflix series Adolescence (she's allowed to do Stephen Graham's accent because they laughed in Liverpool at it), then the risks of a menopausal woman having sex with an anotomically male robot in a specialised brothel in Amsterdam, to misconstruing a medical diagnosis requiring vigorous intercourse to dislodge her too-risky-for-ultrasound-treatment kidney stones.
She tied up the ending nicely with a surprise callback from the first act, though it felt like a bit of a cheat the way she dropped it in to finish.
She made us laugh, but she wasn't roll-in-the-aisles funny. The show might have worked better in a smaller performance space, where it was easier to watch her facial expressions sell the comedy.
Ticket Price: £27.70 x 2 & £3.95 transaction fee = £59.35 from ATG
Sara loves her husband, but... he's very tall, like a whole foot taller than her. He wears size 13 shoes and leaves them on the floor like a trip hazard. If he puts two items of his clothes into the laundry basket, it becomes full, and they don't make bigger ones. She's checked. He's also blind to dirty towels. Fresh ones he can locate, no problem, but used ones can lie on the floor for weeks if she doesn't clean up after him. She tried it. She's thinking it would be better for him to get another wife. Not a replacement. An extra one. To share all the duties.
She loves her kids, of course she does, but sometimes she doesn't. She is a late mother, having her first one via IVF in her forties. They are currently two and four and have turned her into a constant wiper. Every meal gets flung everywhere. She finds discarded baked beans in every crevice of her kitchen.
Her husband once did a helpful thing and used a tool to remove them all, but didn't do what any woman would do: throw them away. No, he sought credit for his accomplishment and left them for her in a small jar beside the sink. She thought he'd left her a lovely present of some peanuts and only realised they weren't after she popped them in her mouth. As she realised they weren't peanuts, she noticed the empty crevices, but swallowed them anyway because that would be one less thing to clean up.
She decries how women will put poison in their face to avoid looking older, explaining she's done the research and found other horrendous examples, such as how scientists have sewn an old mouse to a young mouse, joining their blood systems and found the older mouse lived longer. Another example was an oddball billionaire who injects himself with his son's blood to extend his life. Now that gentleman only celebrates his birthday every nineteen months because of how much longer he thinks he's going to live. Sara, on the other hand, has started smoking again, so she now holds her birthday party every eight months.
Sarah was fantastic tonight. No support act, just two 45-minute sets. Even the recycled material about loving Take That when she was sixteen was given a fresh spin in light of her current circumstances. (She had more screentime in the crowd scenes outside The Big Breakfast house than she did on Last One Laughing).
Our seats were in the fourth row of the stalls, but I never felt uncomfortable. Sara is not that kind of comedian. Pausing for crowdwork is not her style. She relies on the rhythm of her words to carry the comedy along. Indeed, latecomers and unexpected laughter distracted her, throwing her off her material. You could see her replaying the set in her head until she found the rhythm to jump back in.
I asked my wife if she found any of Sara's material triggering (the husband scenarios sounded painfully familiar - I still don't know how to use our new washing machine, and I'm not allowed to touch the iron in case I break it). She laughed ruefully. She's also not buying into the idea of taking on an extra wife, though. Our super king-size bed may be comfortably big enough to sleep three, but she's not falling for that. She'd end up having to do all the work there, too.
Ticket Price: £31 x 2 plus £3.95 Service Fee = £65.95 from Trafalgar Tickets
Blurb
Have you ever been awake in the middle of the night and thought something so smart and astute that you couldn’t wait for the world to wake up so you could tell them?
THIS SHOW IS THAT THOUGHT.
In that it doesn’t make much sense and is a bit weird on reflection.
Sara Pascoe is a comedian and her children don’t sleep and her kitchen won’t clean itself and her husband “doesn’t want to be in it”.
As seen and heard on Taskmaster, Live at the Apollo, The Great British Sewing Bee, QI, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Mock the Week and co-host of Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club podcast.
And so begins my second night of being entertained by a grey-haired Scottish pensioner, albeit one with a more prolific musical pedigree. I had deliberately avoided seeking out any information about the show, bar looking up the setlist. I had not expected so many Talking Heads numbers, so I had to expand my listening beyond his recent album.
Preshow birdsong
I'm not a Talking Heads aficionado, nor have I followed David's solo career closely, but I was aware of the acclaim for his previous tour, which is why my interest was piqued for this one.
There was no support act, with the show due to begin at 8 pm. I arrived early, finding the auditorium sparse, though not empty. Birdsong, rather than music, played over the PA (except available on the short video above - DO NOT expect anything to happen).
The stage is equally bare. A moonscape dominates the floor and the lower section of the semicircular wall, which blocks off the back of the stage. The wall has two gaps and appears to be covered with black drapes, though the lads who later sit beside me debate whether they are screens or curtains. I use my phone camera to zoom in and decide curtains. They decide the moonscape is a projection.
The show is a complete sellout, so by 8 pm, most people are already in their seats. A message over the PA warns us to 'be present and to limit our phone and video use during the performance for the benefit of those around us. Dancing, however, is allowed, except in the aisles, due to Fire Safety regulations.' This elicits a cheer from the crowd. My view of the right side of the stage is hindered by the tall chap sitting in front, so it's clear I'm not going to be able to film the show anyway. I settle in to take in the experience.
It then occurs to me that there are no instruments or equipment present anywhere. Is everything hidden behind the walls? Would they lift away to reveal a band?
A Glaswegian voice cries out from the Rear Circle, seeking out the location of his mates. They, it turns out, are a few rows in front of me. They shout back, mocking him for trying to find them in the wrong section. The skinny man then makes his way down the steps, focusing all his attention on not spilling the four full pints he is carrying in the square cardboard drinks holder. At his row, everyone stands up to allow him access. Halfway along, he stumbles, yelling an expletive in alarm as the drinks tumble. However, thanks to the quick action of the person he had reached, who grabbed two tumbling pints, disaster was averted. The grateful drinker proceeded to his seat with most of his purchases intact.
The lights dim. The show begins.
David and his dozen-strong ensemble flow through the gaps in the wall and adopt their starting positions. They all wear the same blue suits that David wears, even down to the shoes. It becomes clear that the flooring is also a giant screen. The drapes that I believed covered the walls turned out to be images of drapes. Every visible inch of the stage is a screen, used to wonderful effect. It feels like a mini version of the Las Vegas Sphere, though only within the stage. Very clever.
The musicians carry and play their instruments like a marching band, only with more intricate choreography. This has all been carefully thought out. The backing dancers are also the backing singers. The effect is mesmerising. The sound is full and rich, and I'm in 'Heaven'.
During one song, the musicians' names appear on the walls, mapping their locations as they move about the stage. The names also appear on the floor beside the white circles, which follow their paths. I can't tell if AI is being used to monitor this or if everything has been precisely choreographed.
For another song, David walks across the stage, his silhouette within a moving spotlight on the wall. When he changes direction, the silhouette doesn't, eliciting a laugh from the crowd as the shadow tries to catch up with him. Again, all very clever.
David's song introductions weren't always as exacting. He knew what he wanted to say, but when the crowd shouted out, it interrupted his flow. I found the crowd equally distracting. During his less well-known numbers, punters often exited to head to the bar, causing everyone in their row to rise. The same would happen again upon their return. I wish the venue would shut the bars during the performance and insist the staff limit ingress and egress to between songs. If the intention is to be present, I want to experience the show, not the punters needing a piss or a pint.
Anyway, the show itself was an extraordinary experience. As soon as it was over, I was on the internet, looking up ATG, Ticketmaster and Twickets to see if I could get tickets for the Playhouse shows - unfortunately, they were all completely sold out.
Another Scottish pensioner at the top of his game.
Setlist
Heaven (Talking Heads song)
Everybody Laughs
And She Was (Talking Heads song)
Strange Overtones (Brian Eno & David Byrne cover)
Houses in Motion (Talking Heads song)
T Shirt
(Nothing but) Flowers (Talking Heads song)
This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) (Talking Heads song)
What Is the Reason for It?
Like Humans Do
When We Are Singing
Independence Day
Slippery People (Talking Heads song)
I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party
My Apartment Is My Friend
Air (Talking Heads song)
Psycho Killer (Talking Heads song)
Life During Wartime (Talking Heads song)
Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads song)
Encore:
Everybody's Coming to My House
Burning Down the House (Talking Heads song)
Ticket Price: £85.00 + Facility Charge £2.50 + Service Fee £11.50 + Handling Fee £2.50 = Total £101.50 from Ticketmaster
We had arrived slightly later than usual, just before midday, when the ticket validation began, so the queue was out almost onto the street. This meant when we got inside, there was no seating left, and our allocated entry number was quite high. Still, we ended up in the queue in the bar for twenty minutes and found a space beside a table at the back of the hall, so the wait wasn't too bad.
When we did get into the venue, the first thing I noticed was the absence of TV cameras. We sat in the back row, pleased there was no cameraman blocking the view.
A thoroughly enjoyable experience, once again.
Subjects:
US and Israel at war with Iran;
The Scottish Government has awarded a contract to Fergusson Marine to build four boats;
The nationalisation of Ardrossan Harbour;
Damien Barr: Burger King trialling AI headsets to monitor customer service
Judith Ralston: Pregnancy causes physical changes in the mother's brain (Baby brain is real).
Mystery person 1: Hannah Spencer, newly elected MP, for the Green Party.
Mystery Person 2: Jonathan Ross (promoting his new show, Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing)
Quickfire question: "16% of the over 45's are what?" - answer: are flatsharing.
"When Trump referred to Starmer as not being like Churchill, do you think he meant the dog?" Mark Nelson.
If Peter Capaldi hadn't been the 12th Doctor, would I have gone to this gig? Probably not. Which would have been a shame, as it was a cracking night.
The drive through to Edinburgh was marred by my sat nav not recognising that Gorgie Street was closed, then attempting to make me drive through a dead end, then redirecting me back towards the closed road. I had planned for such contingencies, though, so I still arrived on time, parking on the Cowgate.
The queue had already snaked around the La Belle Angele covered area. Ticketmaster hadn't supplied me with actual paper or electronic tickets. The app message indicated that I should collect them from the box office. Overhearing a conversation between two lads, I realised that I was not alone in this regard. Only the doors to the venue were very much shut. I joined the queue and figured I'd work it out when the doors opened. Which was earlier than billed.
Security then told us to form two lines: one for those with tickets and the other for those needing to go to the box office. The box office line was longer and moved much more slowly. Oh well, I guess I won't be near the front. Wrong. I did quite well to get five from the front. Then a cheeky, young lad squeezed into the slight gap in front of me. He was a big unit, but shorter than me, so I let it go.
Unfortunately, he had phone Tourettes. When the support act played, he couldn't help snapping photos and short videos; his phone rose indiscriminately every couple of minutes, never recording a whole song, lifting it just high enough to affect my view. I resigned myself to forgetting about taking any videos myself. There were plenty of others doing it further forward, so if I was lucky, I'd be able to catch their work on YouTube later.
As soon as Zoe Graham took to the stage, I recognised her but couldn't think where I'd seen her before. I checked this blogsite and realised it was from Elbow at the Bandstand. Her set tonight was good. She played solo because bringing her band was unaffordable, so they were present in spirit via her tablet, which played the backing tracks. Her mum and dad were once again in the audience. She seemed an apt choice to open for Peter: plenty of guitar, Scottish vocals, meaningful pop tunes, and a confident performer.
Peter's young bandmembers were all attired in black Adidas tracksuits. Peter himself wore a black suit, speckled with sequins, over a buttoned-up, white shirt. He hasn't been the Doctor for over eight years, but standing on that stage, I could imagine this was the Time Lord having a whale of a time in his rock-star era. Except Peter is a far better actor than that, too skilled to allow that feeling to remain long. This was Peter Capaldi, rock star.
I'd been listening to Peter's two albums for a couple of days, impressed by the 80s indie synth/ guitar vibe and his lyrics. I got the sense that the production could have been punchier, though. This wasn't an issue live, though, as the place was properly rocking. At least at the start.
When he veered into his more soul-baring tunes, such as Bin Night, about expressing his love for his grandson, the audience remained rapt. He's obviously rehearsed his banter, the chatty bits as much of a performance as the songs. He takes the music seriously, but not himself, sharing his surprise that so many lovely, young people had paid to see a grandfather sing when they could do that at home for free. And should.
He's dapper and droll (I loved his comment after the Bowie cover about his band being his 'Spiders from Largs'). Even off the cuff, he's sharp (in response to his remark praising Edinburgh, someone shouts 'Gaun Yersel', to which he replies tellingly, "That's a Glasgwegian expression", bringing cheers from parts of the crowd). By including the "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" speech from Macbeth, he recognises and celebrates his foolishness as a poor actor, taking the stage for an hour, full of noise and passion, yet ultimately meaningless. How's that for Shakespearian satire?
I loved this gig. The audience was well up for it, though not too rowdy. Yes, the cameras popped up regularly at the start (Curses, I wanted to do that!), but settled down to manageable levels later in the set, when I could take a reasonably clear video.
The queue to get out was complicated by the masses queuing to meet Peter at the merch stall. Only when the venue staff shouted which stairs were for the merch queue did things get moving. I didn't mind. I got to peoplewatch. One young lad chatting to his girlfriend praised heaps on Peter's performance in the Paddington series. I couldn't tell if he was being serious, but he was of an age when that film would have been his thing. He would still have been in Primary School when The Thick of It aired, and he didn't look the type whose parents would have let him experience Malcolm Tucker's language. I was surprised by how youthful the crowd was, mainly young girls in their student years. How Peter became their demographic, I'll never know.
I didn't wait for an autograph or selfie. By the time I exited the venue, Peter hadn't appeared at the stall yet. Given the size of the queue, I think the strict cut-off time will have left many punters disappointed. I'm pleased I went, though. As he joked, he's 67 with a heart condition. This first tour could also be his farewell tour.
Let's hope not.
(Edit: On FB, my Kiwi pal asked if Peter's heart condition was having more than one. Bravo, Al).
Setlist:
Is It Today
It's Not Over Until It's Over
Sweet Illusions
Bin Night
Beautiful and Weird
Something to Behold
A Little Bit of Class (extended mid-section with encouraged audience participation)
Not Going Anywhere
The Great Magnificence
In Person
Hollywood or Bust
Through the Cracks
All the Young Dudes / Dont Look Back in Anger (David Bowie cover) (with "Tomorrow and Tomorrow" monologue from Macbeth)
Encore:
Friday I'm in Love (The Cure cover)
No One in the World
Videos:
Through the Cracks
Friday I'm in Love
Photos:
Zoe Graham
Ticket Price: £30.00 + Service Fee: £3.90 + Handling Fee £2.95 = Total £36.85
Blurb:
Actor Peter Capaldi, better known as the electric guitar-playing incarnation of Dr Who and the ‘Thick Of It’ swearer-in-chief Malcolm Tucker, picks up where he left off some forty years ago when he was a new wave wannabe rock star in a Glasgow band. Next year, he hits the road for his first-ever live music tour.
The dark synths, fuzzy guitars and noirish romanticism of a young rocker trapped in the body of a beloved television veteran will be on show in select venues across the UK for two weeks only next year.
Peter said, “I was in a band at art school, fired up by the punk explosion, we went out into the world in search of rock stardom, and well… I became an actor. But I never lost my love for music. And in recent years have produced two albums of original songs, “St.Christopher “ (2021) and this year’s “Sweet Illusions.” Recording, with all the advantages of the digital age, is one thing; playing live is another, but I wanted to see if I could go out after all of these years and play live in front of an audience. Well, let’s see what happens. I’ve lucked out with my band, a group of wonderful young musicians who have bravely come on board for the ride. “
