I've been going to see Frankie perform since the days of his pink suit when he played at The Garage on Sauchiehall Street. I've watched his star rise, get consumed by his own bile then witnessed his return on his own terms, sober but still delightfully twisted and curmudgeonly.
The support act was the naturally funny Ray Bradshaw. He got twenty minutes to play with before the venue insisted on selling more booze and ice cream. He coped admirably. His material around sign language and his deaf parents was top-notch. He is touring later in the year and would be well worth a look-see.
We were warned both on the posters displayed on the doors and verbally by the ushers that once Frankie has started there would be no readmittance to anyone leaving the auditorium. Obviously, for a Glasgow audience, this meant wading back to your seat loaded up with pints of lager just before the lights dimmed. I wondered how many would last through his set without needing a pish. Fortunately for them, he only played for an hour so few departed.
Tam Cowan was sitting in front of me. He didn't load up at the interval but did need a pish at the end, asking the ladies to his right if they wouldn't mind letting him pass given his urgency. As he is semi-famous, they, of course, insisted on chatting to him. He managed to hold it in as far as I could tell. No fouling off the ball for Tam.
(Trivia: Tam looks older than me but is actually six months younger - that's journalism for you).
I had attended the gig alone so was more receptive to the people around me. I thought the couple sitting on my right were mismatched. Both were in their early twenties. She was a pretty brunette in a green and blue dress with red tights that colour-matched her loafers. She also wore a purple beaded necklace that Frankie might have suggested (had he seen it), she kept as an emergency marital aid. The boyfriend, on the other hand, looked like he could pass as Ed Sheeran's older brother in Jarvis Cocker specs, with short ginger hair, short ginger beard and, presumably, short ginger pubes. He droned on with the annoying monotony of a 1970's sociology lecturer.
I couldn't understand their attraction.
Then, when Frankie came on stage (not sexually), she put her fingers to her mouth and let rip a whistle that would leave Ray Bradshaw's parents complaining.
Then I got it.
She was pretty.
He was annoying.
Together they were pretty annoying.
The rest of the audience were mostly well-mannered with only a couple of idiots heckling. Frankie swiftly put them down and moved on, not wishing to give their interruption more air than they deserved, while inwardly hoping they might bleed to death on the leaky priapism they'd given themselves.
You can tell I enjoyed the gig.
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