Coldplay, 'A Head Full of Dreams' Tour, Hampden Park, Glasgow. Tues 7th June 2016

Despite the Yellow weather warning from the met office, the rain stayed away above Hampden. Even if it had, I don’t think it would have dampened the mood because the Coldplay audience were having an Amazing Day (if it had been at Parkhead, I could have used the ‘Para-Para-Paradise’ line).

As you entered the stadium, each person was handed a wristband (or Xyloband). Instructions on how to activate it and wear them appeared on the big screen prior to the show. The lighting effect of tens of thousands of these across the whole stadium was amazing, like rainbow fireflies dancing above the audience. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We had seats in the West Stand, with a stretch of tarmac and the First Aid tent between us and the packed standing area. It felt like we were sitting in an overflow car park, the distance it left us from the stage and its long extension through the middle of the audience. The squinty First Aid sign also frustrated me, but not so much that I could be bothered faking an illness in order to get through the barrier to the Standing area to straighten it.

We missed the first support act but caught the second. Lianne La Havas offered some strong vocals and a guitar groove that was infectious, even if few of the audience agreed when she asked them to sing ‘Turn up your love’. The camera pan on the big screen displayed a sea of staring, closed-mouthed fans. Nevertheless a fine support act.

Coldplay came on at 8.45pm and played through to 10.50pm. There were fireworks, explosions of floating colour, giant balloons, lasers and even shooting flames, most of which lost their impact until the sun set. This didn’t matter though because deep down Coldplay is about four blokes playing great stadium pop-rock. Chris Martin is a charismatic frontman and musician and the band is solid.

A lot of people mock Coldplay, a fact which Chris Martin acknowledges, but I think those people just don’t get it. Coldplay capture and share joy in performance. Chris Martin is a man-child who never had his dreams crushed by life. He loves what he does and it shows: with talent, with humour and with uninhibited dance moves, like you might have done as a kid and not cared. It’s all about being happy and having fun. What's not to love?

They played from three different locations within the stadium: main stage, end of walkway stage and in the Stand opposite the stage, none of which were any closer to us, a fact for which Chris apologised. Nice guy.

As always, a few fans caught my attention. The tall Chris Martin clone, with the University of Glasgow lanyard and cycle helmet, who sat in front of me was an annoyance, because, when he was sitting, he used the back of his seat as an elbow rest and kept hitting my knee, and when he stood up he blocked my view.

The dancers on the tarmac were heart-warming. Two, in particular, stood out: the one I imagined to be Susan Boyle’s blond sister, in a black top and leggings, who performed her own form of expressionistic dance during the entire concert, adding a purple balloon prop later on. She was brilliant, even shimmying all the way up to the fencing at the First Aid tent for a quick vape; and the bare-backed squaw in the yellow dress and gold sandals, wearing sunglasses and a hairband, who performed a ‘keep the rain away’ dance with her lanky male partner for the entire show provided lots of vigour. Not a dance inhibition between them. (videos to follow)

Overall, it was a great concert experience, despite the view.

Setlist
A-Stage:
O Mio Babino Caro (Maria Callas song) tape
A Head Full of Dreams (extended intro with Charlie Chaplin speech)
Yellow
Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall
The Scientist
Birds (with "Oceans" excerpt in intro)
Paradise (with Tiësto remix outro)

B-stage:
Magic
Ink
Everglow (Single Version)

A-stage:
Clocks
Midnight (Partial)
Charlie Brown
Hymn for the Weekend
Fix You (with "Midnight" excerpt in intro)
"Heroes" (David Bowie cover)
Viva la Vida
Adventure of a Lifetime

C-stage:
Kaleidoscope (extended)
In My Place (acoustic)
The Hardest Part (audience request song; acoustic)
See You Soon (with a snippet of "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers)

A-stage:
Amazing Day (extended intro)
A Sky Full of Stars
Up&Up
End Credits (concert credits on screen)

MUSE, Drones tour, SSE Hydro, Glasgow, Sun 17th April 2016

I was really looking forward to this gig. 'Drones' was my favourite album of last year and, although our seats were in the upper section, MUSE had promised a spectacle.

The first disappointment came on arrival when everyone was being funneled into huge lines through the south entrance. At this point, the doors had been open for forty minutes so I wasn't expecting such a long queue. It took fifteen minutes to get through in a bitingly cold wind as security searched (almost) everyone for booze or weapons. Our queue didn't have a female security person so the women didn't get a frisk. The man who searched me was in a right mood, pausing his search to repeat, 'I said are you carrying any beer, bottles or cans?' when I failed to respond to his initial mumble. If you expect an answer, don't address my chest, talk to the ears. Welcome to the Hydro.

The second disappointment was realising we couldn't see the round screen above the stage from our seats because the sound and lighting rigs obscured our view. This was a small irritation but enough to trigger my negative mood.

The support act were not the ones listed on the Ticketmaster email. Instead, we got Phantogram, an American electro-rock band with a female lead singer. They never managed to own the large circular stage. Being unfamiliar with their work, their songs never engaged me and I was glad when they stopped.

MUSE have a powerful sound. It's a shame they didn't get the acoustics right last night, with a lot of sibilance on Matt Bellamy's vocals. I didn't think he was on top form, his guitar work occasionally sloppy, his vocals missing the big notes consistently. Matt also failed to personalise the show for the Glasgow fans, bar three obligatory mentions of Glasgow and two of 'Scotland'. No chat, little crowd work; it was the same show that everyone else gets. He didn't even introduce his bandmates.

I did think the staging was imaginative, with its turntable centre and raised wings; the lighting was amazing and the floating spheres added another dimension. The screens that descended occasionally worked well sometimes, such as when displaying the hands pulling the puppet strings, but were weaker when projecting live images of the band. Maybe it was the angle we were looking at them, though.

The crowd on floor level looked like they were really enjoying themselves, bouncing and rippling, with an occasion mini mosh pit erupting during the faster numbers. Upstairs we wobbled our legs, nodded our heads and were told to sit down if we deigned to stand. Probably for our own good given how drunk some were. The chatting behind me really irritated me during the quieter numbers but that was perhaps due to a lack of engagement with the band. It didn't stop me imagining turning around and lifting the squawking woman bodily from her seat and propelling her over the balcony to the floor below. Give her something to really talk about. A couple of rows in front of me the tall lads, in their late twenties/ early thirties, with formerly athletic frames built in the gym and lost in the pub, regularly popped off for another quartet of pints, forcing everyone else in the row to stand up to let them out. I understand why they don't but it would be great if the venue would shut the bars during the performance to avoid this disturbance. I was amused by their air hugging at the end, necks too tired to support their lolling heads.

If I went to see MUSE again, I would only want to do so if I was standing. I'm left with a feeling of 'seen that, done that, box ticked, move on' which I'm sure is not the impression MUSE want to give their fans.

Setlist
Drones (Intro tape) 
Psycho
Reapers
Map of the Problematique
('Who Knows Who' riff + Rage Against The Machine's 'Maggie's Farm' riff outro) 
Dead Inside
Bliss (Extended outro)
The 2nd Law: Isolated System (Shortened)
The Handler
Supermassive Black Hole (The Jimi Hendrix Experience's 'Voodoo Child' intro)
Prelude
Starlight
Citizen Erased
Munich Jam
Madness
[JFK]
Stockholm Syndrome (Rage Against The Machine's 'Township Rebellion' riff + 'Execution Commentary' riff outro)'
Time Is Running Out
Uprising (Extended outro)
The Globalist
Drones (Reprise)

Encore:
Take a Bow
Mercy
Knights of Cydonia (Ennio Morricone's 'Man With a Harmonica' intro)

Mark Thomas. ‘TRESPASS’, The Tron Theatre, Wed 13th April 2016

Mark Thomas is a political comedian, an activist, a trouble maker and, most of all, very funny. With an impish demeanour, he can be playful, indignant, raging and serious all in one sentence. Throwaway lines explode like comedic hand grenades. He prowls and parades across the stage, owning the space (an apt metaphor), commanding and demanding our attention for the words he speaks are a gospel of truth designed to open our eyes to the injustices around us (with wank gags: he assures us the political stuff is coming later).

In the first half, the fifty-three-year-old performs as his own support, describing what he was up to last year with his 100 acts of minor dissent. The audience supply him with four random numbers between 1 and 100 and he describes those particular acts from his book of the same name. They encompass things like having three female friends racing a pink remote control car on the pavement outside the Saudi embassy to rearranging the letters on the overhead banner promoting the films playing at the Curzon Cinema to highlight their policy of using zero hour contracts and paying less that the living wage. It was in this half that he notices an audience member lit up by his mobile phone. He then pauses the show to lecture the person about how, having paid for his ticket, he may feel entitled to use his phone but in reality, he was not only putting him off as the performer but he was also being rude to everyone around him who had also paid for their tickets. Such an act of selfishness could only be regarded as that of a Tory, he commented. This serious aside kept the mobiles away for the rest of the performance, a novelty.

In the second half, he starts the show proper. ‘Trespass’ is a show highlighting how our civil freedoms are being eroded by privatisation to such an extent that the very land beneath our feet is being sold off. A public footpath between the Thames and a high rise complex (30% occupied but 100% sold, at a cost from £2.5 million an apartment) has signs erected by the residents saying ‘No Loitering’. Mark takes umbrage with this curtailment of his right to loiter on public land and arranges a tea party with cake to encourage passers-by to stop. Then it escalates to a full-blown fete the following week when the residents complain.

He runs a 5K along the two public edges of the 15 metre triangle outside the RBS London head office to highlight that this former public pavement is now owned by RBS. He then attempts to get the walk recognised as a heritage trail. Just two examples among many that inform the show so I'm not spoiling too much.

The joy in his work is the way he uses absurdity to shed a light on injustice, which in itself can be equally absurd, e.g. Salford Council wished to introduce a swearing ban so he asked them to indicate which from a list of 240 words could he use during his show at the Arts Centre, not wishing to break the law. They replied he could use any of them because his show was art and they did not wish to curtail his freedom of speech. As such, he arranged a choir to sing a song consisting entirely of those swear words outside his show afterwards, a video of which appeared on the Mail Online with almost every word bleeped out (everything apart from ‘cunny’). Hilarious!

He is smart, witty, vulgar, challenging, righteous and preachy but right on the nose. He may be too old to flirt anymore but this audience loved him and his message. His three dates at the Tron are sold out and on the strength of this material, I can understand why.

Hue and Cry, Paisley Town Hall. Sat 26th March 2016

The support act was Emily Middlemass, with a young backing band of teenagers, none of whom would have had any chance of being served alcohol at the bar. No pics because it felt really awkward to photograph her. She is 15/16 and looks about thirteen. She has a good pop voice and a rock/ pop sound, writes her own material, which is teen catchy, and has appeared on the X Factor, but it felt wholly inappropriate for a late-forty-odd male to be excited by her. I had to look away as she sat on the edge of the stage, fearing a Britney Spears exposure moment. Aside from a misfire finale of The Killers 'All These Things I've Done' (her only cover), she rocked the town hall. Early days for her, though. I may revisit when it's legal.

I was a big fan of Hue and Cry in the eighties and early nineties, seeing them perform in all sizes of venues, but lost my way after Stars Crash Down. Tonight the Kane brothers brought the full band to Paisley.Their show was a fair mix of all their stuff: the early pop classics, the Hue and Cry faves. to some newer jazzy stuff I'd not heard before.

I wasn't sure what to make of the audience. At first, I thought they were just Paisley punters there because it was in Paisley but not necessarily fans. I was surprised that so many sang along. The older stuff worked better, being more familiar. When they played the newer stuff a noticeable chunk of the audience made their way to the toilets or the bar for an empty/refill. Surrounded a mix of males and females of an older age group, I became aware tonight of the function of a beer belly - to rest one's pint on, with lots of men adopting this cosy position.

I didn't rate the trumpet player or the guitarist but the rest of the band were solid. Pat Kane's ego could fill any hall and he still gives a great performance, belting out the tunes and jerking his moves to the music. The sound was a little too loud for the venue (a bit distorted and screechy at times) and my ears are still ringing and probably will be for days. They gave us an hour and a half which was fine for Paisley.

Thank you to Jackie Mills for finding me a ticket after the gig sold out. It's lovely when a customer can repay your years of caring service with a favour. Cheers, Jackie.

Adele, SSE Hydro, Glasgow. Fri 25th March 2016.

From the gods of the Hydro three rows from the roof, I enjoyed tonight's Adele concert. Unlike the Marillion lyrics of my youth, I cannot recite the words to every one of her songs but most of the audience (girls, gays and boyfriends, mostly) could. She has a great voice and a genuine affection for her audience. The sound in the auditorium was really sharp, at least until the encore when a bit of echo crept in.

I noted a lot of the females around me (just generally) really felt touched (not by me) emotionally (drunk?), as if her words were really speaking to them and I don't mean the occasional 'shit, fuck' that peppered her between-song chats.

She is very open with her audience, wiggling waves at them while singing, engaging and friendly, even autographing a boy's chest on stage while his boyfriend took pictures, then selfies and hugs.

It's a deceptively simple show (no support act) focusing on her and her songs. She doesn't have a lot of dance numbers in her back catalogue which didn't stop one girl a couple of rows in front of me doing her best impression of a forecourt inflatable sign, arms flapping in the air randomly while holding a half-empty plastic beer cup; or the mother, whose seven (?) year old daughter brought her cuddly rabbit, who rocked and pointed like Mo Farah to the music at any opportunity. I mock them only because I am too reserved to show any dance moves beyond tapping my feet and occasionally swaying. Plus there was the fear of falling. And I have a cold. But I'm getting off the point.

She is who she is and she gave a good two and a half hours tonight. The staging was clever and not too showy. Not many 27-year-olds in the music biz can match her for personality, ability and talent. You wouldn't want to mess with her. So well done Adele.

Setlist

Hello

Hometown Glory

One and Only

Rumour Has It

Water Under the Bridge

I Miss You

Skyfall

Million Years Ago

Don't You Remember

Send My Love (to Your New Lover)

Make You Feel My Love (Bob Dylan cover)

Sweetest Devotion

Chasing Pavements

Someone Like You

Set Fire to the Rain

Encore:

All I Ask

When We Were Young

Rolling in the Deep

LIMMY LIVE! SEC Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow. Sun 31st Jan 2016.

Quite a few empty seats down in the stalls was perhaps symptomatic of a Sunday night show in Glasgow rather than the enthusiasm of the audience. To me it felt like a Limmy's Show memorial with an appreciative audience there to pay their respects. Referencing material from the show extracted laughs, eg Dee Dee mentioning Yoker, without it actually being funny in itself.

It was fine. Some good laughs, a bit of gentle audience participation (but only if they were up for it) and lots of the C-word. 'She's turned the weans against me' was clever, starting in the balcony, then descending to the circle then the stalls, all the while extending the joke (top floor - novelty of being there, upper circle down to his pants, front circle his plastic dobber flops out, stalls reveals the skid marks on the pants) then a dance on the stage with floppy wiggling between his legs. The big screen links between sketches were inventive in the style of the tv show, playing with convention.

My main criticism is: this was Limmy Show Live! I would have preferred more new material, new characters and less reliance on goodwill. He was trading mostly on his old material rather than creating new stuff. But two hours (with a 15min interval) flew by so it wasn't all bad.

The supporting cast were excellent.

If he does another one, he's going to have to come up with fresh material.

Link to YouTube Clip 

Admiral Fallow, Celtic Connections, the Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow. Sat 30th Jan 2016

Admiral Fallow played a sold-out gig at The Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow tonight. Support came in the shape of Hannah Lou Clark who strummed a distorted electric guitar, occasionally backed by a drum machine, while warbling away her songs. Nuff said about her.

Admiral Fallow have a very distinctive Scottish sound, due in part to the burl of lead singer Louis Abbot. They're hard to describe: imagine a pint of Scottish art college band, with a chaser of Mumford and Sons and a dash of Radiohead, then add extra percussion, a clarinet, flute and an accordion, then go and listen to them on Itunes. Good gig and a very eclectic crowd: from geriatrics down to teens all enjoying a Celtic Connection.

Setlist
Happened in The Fall
Carousel
Holding The Strings
Guest Of The Government
Dead Against Smoking
Subbuteo
Building As Foreign
Evangeline
Four Bulbs
Tree Bursts
The Paper Trench
Brother
Squealing Pigs
Easy As Breathing

Encore:
Liquor And Milk
Isn't This World Enough??
Old Balloons