Gut Reactions (post-gig memories and other trips): Samantha Fish + Jesse Dayton, Barrowlands, Glasgow. Friday 20th October, 2023

An unexpected gig for me. I accepted the offer to go along because someone dropped out. I wasn't familiar with her tunes except for a few streams on Amazon Music.

We started the evening at the pub, The Sir John Moore, where we table shuffled, like everyone else, to accommodate our party. The food was good, the (soft) drink was cheap and the company was great.

Then I drove across town to find a parking bay near the Barrowlands. Plenty of choice. The venue was the quietest I'd ever seen it. Usually, the long bar is open at the side but tonight that whole area was cordoned off with barriers and curtains. Instead, Sam's Bar (the small one near the upstairs doors) was open. This also meant the trestle table sites where sweets and soft drinks were usually sold were absent. Tonight's patrons were on the mature side, unlikely to trouble the Consumer Division of Just for Men (mostly grey or bald). With plenty of space, we took up our position in the middle/left of the dancefloor.

It did get busier but not a sell-out.

The support act was The Commoners. Their website describes them as "possessing a sound tapped from the oaken belly of a whiskey barrel, (they) are a 5-piece Roots/Rock outfit from Toronto, Canada. I was unaware of their work but found them rather excellent. They looked like they'd time-travelled from the mid1970s, with their hippy clothes and facial hair, but I enjoyed them so much I streamed their album on the way home. The following day, I was surprised to hear them again, being played on the Planet Rock Weekend Breakfast Show (I was in the shower at the time, thinking there's another band that sounds like The Commoners). Bob bought one of their T-shirts (design as below) and Alex bought their CD, which is great for a support act, previously unknown to us.

By the time the main act took the stage, the dancefloor was still spacious (except in front of Bob where one long-haired bloke and his girlfriend decided to slide in just before the lights went down).

From the start, Samantha Fish, dressed in a black leather jacket and gold spandex flares, looked uncomfortable with her sound, often fiddling with her earpiece and gesturing to the engineers to up it. Her vocals reminded me of a cross between Amy Whitehouse and Dolly Parton. She's an accomplished guitarist with a great presence on stage and this tour was to support her album with Jesse Dayton, a musician/actor/record producer from Austin, Texas. He was pulling the cool dude vibe, dressed in black, firing up his guitar chords.

But...

The combination of Sam and Jesse didn't quite work. Having the two up front diluted the performance rather than enhancing it. His guitar playing is good but not outstanding, compared to Samantha's. He played twiddly bits while Sam soloed which was distracting, as if he wanted to show off what he could do too. When Jesse was front and centre, it felt like a different concert. I preferred it when Sam was leading.

Overall, the night was okay. The worst bit was the drive home in the rain with the M8 shut, having to find our way home through the Southside.

Setlist

Kick Out the Jams (MC5 cover)

Deathwish

Feelin' Good (Little Junior’s Blue Flames cover)

Hello Stranger (Barbara Lewis cover)

Brand New Cadillac (Vince Taylor & The Playboys cover)

Settle for Less

Bulletproof (Tangle Eye Mix) (Samantha Fish cover)

Down in the Mud

No Apology

Trauma