While a few of my friends nipped along to the Barrowland to sample some old school Big Country and The Skids, I instead plumped for something quieter at Paisley Town Hall. I was a bit surprised to get parked so easily close to the venue until I discovered the gig wasn't in the main hall but instead upstairs in one of the smaller rooms.
It wasn't the kind of gig to take pictures so I'll do my best to describe it.
The ambience in the Alexander Wilson Suite was cosy but refined. Seats in rows of six on either side of the long room provided a capacity for around two hundred people. Most were taken up by a mainly mature audience with only a few empty ones near the back. The cold night was kept at bay by grilled radiators inset in the walls distributing warm air to the room. Dangling from the ornate ceiling, massive brass chandeliers conjured an image of mutant-legged spiders holding up dim, electric candles, some of which weren't lit, casting a soft glow on the audience below. Two spotlights, one on either side of the slightly raised stage, were accompanied by a couple of coloured uplighters, providing a pink tinge on the back wall and, as the musicians moved forward or back, creating bluey shadows, which stretched and shrank behind them.
Guitarist Lyle Watt was tonight's support act playing around twenty minutes of his instrumental compositions. He's a highly talented plucker, good enough for me to pop to the merch table to purchase his CD EP.
When it was time for Ross Wilson, aka Blue Rose Code, to take the stage he kept it simple, with just him and two band members on stage, the aforementioned Lyle on guitar and someone called Andy on keyboards. All three were bearded and in jumpers, Ross wearing a ribbed brown affair with a round neckline. Ross's hair was short and shaved, the others long but tied back.
Ross played acoustic guitar too and the sound generated by the band was beautiful and clear. The musicianship from all three was exquisite and tight and my only complaint would be that some of Ross' chat between songs was too conversational and a bit unclear at times. Talk into the mike, mate.
Unusually for a Paisley crowd on a Friday night, the audience was respectful and quiet, with only a few making excuses to visit the bar or toilet. At the end, the band got a standing ovation.
For those of you not versed in BRC's music, I would describe it as music to encapsulate the spirit of waking from a cosy night's sleep on a sunny Sunday morning with a view outside of a Scottish beach, the Atlantic waves gently lap against the shore. In the press, it's been described as 'Caledonia Soul'. It's certainly more than just folk music.
Even if I didn't end up rocking 'Into the Valley' tonight 'In a Big Country', I got to enjoy a cultured evening of beautiful, lyrical Scottish music. Cheers, Ross.
(He was much better tonight than the last time I saw him, at Saint Lukes).
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