Yonaka, "Welcome To My House" Tour, SWG3 TV Studios, Glasgow. Monday 25th March, 2024

I am now officially an old man. This was the first time I felt the gig belonged to a different generation—the "Sertraline Generation", epitomised by piercings, tattoos, dyed hair, and sad eyes. Not that I felt unwelcome or unsafe - other adults were present accompanying their teenage daughters - but when the support act instructs the audience to open up a mosh pit, and they willingly comply, the space taking up almost the entire dancefloor, it's time to walk away. I felt like a fringe wallflower, watching as four males bounced about, knocking into one another like trainee wrestlers. I must have missed that dance class.  

This mosh nonsense upset my usual routine, where I plant myself in my carefully selected spot for optimum viewing. With every reset, as people returned to the middle, new tall people or phone wankers landed in front of me. I was well out of my comfort zone.

The first support act was Mimi Barks. She erupted onto the stage in what, to me, looked like a gimp costume: all in black leather with a spiky hood and mask. She screamed, swore, kicked and headbanged like a teenager who needs therapy. Her music is the audible equivalent of a tantrum. Before she left the stage, she finished by telling us, "Fuck you." Not "Thank you", as a polite young woman would say. 

I am not her demographic market.

The second act was Noisy, a wannabe Prodigy-style combo. They were quite good, the frontman establishing his credentials early on with some fine rapping. His constant instructions, like an irritating DJ, grated after a while - "Make some fucking noise", "That's what I'm talking about", "Put your hands in the air", oh, and "Fuck Monday" (middle finger raised in the air). He engaged his audience, though, even coming down into the crowd, getting everyone to crouch down mid-song so they could all jump in the air together. I resisted. My knees and back are too far gone for all that nonsense. 

Or so I thought.

Yonaka shone tonight. Theresa Jarvis can actually sing (not just scream or rap). She has quite a presence on stage, and the crowd loved her. The males in the band are quite striking, too. The place totally rocked. 

For one song, Theresa also came into the crowd, skipping around the mosh pit, and then gestured for everyone to crouch. This time, practically everyone complied, leaving me and about three others still standing. So I had to creak down, wondering if my back would let me back up again. Fortunately, the music was so loud that no one could hear the ooof sound I made as I rose. 

I'd love to see Yonaka again in a larger venue where the moshpit didn't take up the bulk of the audience space. I'd also like to hear them play for longer. The gig finished just after 10 instead of the advertised 10.30, perhaps so their younger audience could catch public transport home again. It was a school night, after all. (However, most of the audience was older than that).

Ticket Price: £25 plus fees (£64 for the pair, plus souvenir ticket).

Setlist:

By the Time You’re Reading This (link to YouTube video)

Greedy

Punch Bag

Call Me a Saint

Creature

Don't Wait 'Til Tomorrow

Hands Off My Money

PANIC

Welcome to My House

I Want More

Give Me My Halo (Acoustic)

PREDATOR

Clique

Rockstar

Encore:

Seize the Power (link to YouTube video).

Photos 

Branded

 

Ed Gamble, 'Hot Diggity Dog' Tour, King's Theatre, Glasgow. Sunday 24th March 2024

The audience is considerably younger than last night's crowd. There are lots of dating couples clutching armfuls of theatre-bought drinks and snacks, indicating they are still in that early romantic stage of their relationship where extravagant gestures (and by that, I mean purchases) matter. I'm sitting one seat over in the same row of the Grand Circle as last night. My wife isn't there, having tested positive for Covid earlier (yes, that's still a thing), so a mate agreed to step in instead at the last minute (ish). I'm not letting him buy me snacks at those prices, though. We've known each other too long.

Ed has made more of an effort than Frank by bringing along a stage backdrop. With Elvis Ed spraying himself with mustard and Posh Boy Ed messily munching on a hot dog, Ed's name is hung in between, surrounded by dice and a diamond ring, giving us an inkling about what his material will be about tonight. 

Before we get to Ed, though, there is a support act. It's someone called Sam Lake (I'd never heard of him either), a comedian so camp that he can't finish a sentence without placing his hand on his (facial) cheek. He spends half his set introducing himself (he is married to a man named David), and the other half doing crowd work with the front row. 

We get the usual questions - "What's your name?" and "What do you do?" - followed by some comedic reaction riffs. One doesn't go to plan, though. The "homemade" (as her mother puts it) twenty-five-year-old daughter admits she doesn't work. "Ooh, taking after your lazy mum," Sam quips. "Why don't you work?" he asks accusingly. "I'm disabled," she replies. The audience audibly takes a sharp intake of breath. How is he going to dance around this one? Sam steps in a circle around the stage and then asks, "Which disabilities do you have?" "Multiple," comes the reply. He winces and asks, moving on, if the man beside her is her brother. "Yes," she replies."He's normal."  

Sam doubles over. "Gosh, I hope no one is recording this. I don't want to get cancelled."

For a support act, his interactions certainly warmed the audience. He was a bit light on actual material, though.   

Ed is a huge heavy metal fan. His pre-show (and interval) playlist consists entirely of metal tracks. Cleverly, he uses Motorhead's Ace of Spades to rev up the crowd before he comes on, repeating the record at the point it says his name, Gamble. 

He starts off with his own crowd work, uncovering a situation in which a daughter is sitting in the front row with her recently fired from Wagamama boyfriend, but her mother is up in the Upper Circle with a deep-voiced someone who is not her partner (we subsequently find out her partner, Alan, is there, too).

After this had been fully mined, we're off, with Ed barely pausing for breath as he steamrolls us through his set, covering topics like his posh boy persona, how the subjects he has previously mocked he has ended up doing (vaping, getting married), his Street's WhatsApp chat group, his honeymoon in Vegas and his feelings towards their pet cat.

It's a professional set with callbacks in all the right places. There are not a lot of surprises, but it's still a good, solid, loud hour or so of comedy. My ears are still ringing with laughter.

Ticket Price £26.50.

Flyer (front)

Flyer (back)

Frank Skinner, 30 Years of Dirt. King's Theatre, Glasgow. Saturday 23rd March, 2024

Frank Skinner announced on his radio show today that Absolute Radio was not renewing his contract after fifteen years at the station. He's now sixty-seven. He said he was, in recent times, "ever-more becoming Grandad from The Simpsons". I have to report that, based on tonight's performance, it didn't show. Even with all his muscular stretches at the start, he's still a limber comedian. 

He won the Perrier Award for Best Comedy Show in 1991, but I'd yet to see him perform a full standup show, having only caught him once as part of a mixed-bill late-night lineup at the Fringe one year. Obviously, I'd seen him on TV back in the day and found him cheeky, smutty, and incredibly funny. Then he went all lad culture with his Fantasy Football League show, and I lost interest. 

This return to the stage was much lauded, with plenty of five-star reviews plus a run in the West End. He's not racist or sexist but does have a wicked, impish sense of humour peppered with occasional vulgarity. His style is conversational, often bantering with the front row as a segue way into his next topic.  The punchlines feel so natural, as does the casual way he dismisses heckles. Yet, there is great skill at work here, making everything sound so effortless yet achingly funny. At one point, when we're ahead of him in the joke, he admits, "Sometimes you should think of me like HelloFresh. I deliver all the comedy ingredients so you can cook up the delicious punchline." (Or something like that).

His support act was Pierre Novellie, his current sidekick from his radio show. I saw him support Phil Wang almost a year ago, and he hadn't changed much, even wearing the same outfit. I did find him funnier, though, possibly because he incorporated much more local material into his set, winning over the audience. Like Frank, his style is laid back and conversational with a great deal of craft going into his phrasing. They complemented each other well. Shame he'll also be out of work now the radio show is stopping.

The audience's age was definitely skewed towards those eligible for imminent retirement planning advice. Not the lady sitting on my left, though. She was a young thing (comparatively) who supped a pint, chatted with her pal and occasionally allowed her leg to stray up against mine. It's funny how I didn't mind this yet inwardly was incensed if the man on my right even nudged my other leg. I guess there's still inequality between the sexes. 

Ticket Price: £32.96 inc fees from ATG.

 

The pre-show view from Grand Circle, row B

 

Adam Rowe, "What's Wrong With Me?" UK Tour 2024. Venue38, Ayr. Friday 22nd March, 2024

I've never listened to his podcast, but his show, "Juicy", which I caught on YouTube, was a superior work of comedy. I had to catch him live. When I noticed he was playing in Ayr (I couldn't make the Edinburgh date), I thought close enough. I didn't realise close still meant an hour's drive, in both directions, along an average-speed M77.

I don't know Ayr, but I figured if I left early enough, I'd find somewhere to park on a street near the venue. Three times I went around that town centre, passing taxi ranks, bus stops, and lanes of disabled spaces, cursing the continuous double yellow lines until I eventually gave up and paid to use a public car park. By this time, I'd been driving in circles for so long that I had no idea where the venue was, and the map on my phone wasn't updating my location. I had to return to the car to check the sat nav. Turned out the venue, Venue 38, was just down the road and around the corner.

I joined the queue, pleased to be quite near the front. The young punters behind me were stoked to see Adam, remarking how much they loved him and Paul Smith (another Liverpudlian comedian). While they waited, they showed each other comedy reels on their phones. A short, heavy shower didn't dampen their spirits. 

At 7 pm, the venue doors opened and we shuffled in, the girl in the booth checking off our names from her list. Venue 38 is a nightclub, not my natural environment. The decor and ultraviolet lighting triggered bad memories from my youth. I sussed out where I wanted to sit (not on the balcony due to a rogue stage light; not at the sides due to the pillars restricting the view). I settled for a seat in the middle of the third row on the dancefloor - close enough not to have my view blocked but far enough away not to be noticed by the comedian (I hoped). The ultraviolet light lit up everyone wearing anything white, including the cap of a bloke in the front row. A brave choice of headwear, I reckoned.

The gig was nowhere near a sellout. Indeed, in terms of my seating location, if I was a meeple on a monastery tile in Carcassone, my score would have been terrible, with empty space in front and beside me. My unhindered view was great, though. 

 

Having driven for over an hour, I needed to pee. The Gent's toilets were honking. The pensioner attendant, who stood over his stash of aftershaves at the sinks, must have been there so long he'd grown accustomed to the smell. Either that or he wanted to be tipped for others to block out the smell with his scoosh.  

The opening act was Darren Connell. He's best known for the programme Scot Squad, where he appeared as Bobby Muir, the character who regularly pestered "Officer Karen." I'd seen him live once before and didn't particularly appreciate his style of Glasgow comedy. The audience didn't warm to him much tonight either, with him commenting about the silence in the room a couple of times. He finished strong, but he could have done better. It didn't help, though, that the venue didn't turn off the spinning disco lights that covered the dancefloor for the first ten minutes of his set. 

Adam Rowe looked different tonight. Dressed in a tracksuit, he appeared trim. His teeth were also perfectly white like he'd gone down the Jimmy Carr route by getting veneers. Disregarding these positive cosmetic differences in his appearance, his comedy is still the same - passionate tales about his various failed relationships and of his family (his father drinks whisky alone at home while watching Corrie, while his mother drank two bottles of vodka a day for twenty years, so by comparison, Adam's certainly not an alcoholic, he says). He discussed his neuroses and how he'd feel if he ever had to give up being a standup. He delayed getting a full-body MRI because he didn't want his deepest fears about his ill health confirmed. It took a special encounter with a disabled man to persuade him he could own his illness once it was diagnosed. The answer to what was wrong with him was classic and a brilliant, unexpected callback.

Adam has a gift for standup. He might not be to everyone's taste, but for those who know, he's up there with the best. 

Ticket price: £24.75 inc fees from Ticketmaster.   

     

Stewart Lee, "Basic Lee", King's Theatre, Glasgow. Sunday 17th March, 2024

I attend this gig on my own. 

I'm sitting in the front row of the Grand Circle beside another man, also on his own, whose splayed knees have already claimed the legroom as he got there first. I shrink as much as my big frame will allow, but it feels like I'm sharing the space with my dominant alter ego. He is also bald but is comfortable asserting his position. Unlike me, he keeps his jacket on to ensure his testicles are not overheated by the presence of extraneous clothing. I'm surprised he can cope with the heat as it is so sweaty (the show is a sellout), even the cherubs (Waley and Paley) above the proscenium arch have disrobed, leaving only a sliver of curtain to cover their dignity (which paints the Deacon Blue song in a whole new spotlight).

On my other side, the gentleman's wife firmly points out to him that his jacket is covering the sign that states no items are to be placed on the ledge. This amuses me, and the show hasn't even started. They amuse me further upon their return to their seats after the interval, with him clutching a bottle of beer and an ice cream tub. He places the beer at his feet, then dips his spoon into his ice cream just as the lights go down, leaving the theatre in near darkness. He freezes (unlike his soft, melting ice cream), remaining in this perilous position until the stage lights come up.    

Stewart Lee's schtick hasn't changed much since 1989, when he began his comedy career. He takes a subject and repeats it over and over, tagging on extra laughs with each pass. He often teases us by not giving us the laugh we expect, then scolds us for wrongly anticipating how he'll deconstruct his own material. His stage persona is that of a smug, sarcastic and sometimes bitter comedian. His writing is clever in how he makes things funny, which is part of the joke. 

Tonight, he strayed slightly from his norm (but not much) by writing some political material and doing some crowd work. Of course, he did it in his own way, as if playing out his role as a proper comedian, suggesting he could do that style of comedy if he wanted to. There was one biting dig at his former double-act partner, Richard Herring, which drew an ooh from the audience. The material about JK Rowling writing crime as Robert Galbraith, a man, reinforcing gender stereotypes, had us making up our own jokes, which he denied having any responsibility for. 

Much of the second half was spent explaining how the style of comedy where a comedian speaks directly to an audience only began in 2016 when Phoebe Waller-Bridge broke the previous mould with her show, Fleabag. He later asked us to make up our own silent jazz soundtrack to his next routine because, due to Brexit, he couldn't afford the clearances for each of the individual European countries. He also let us know that if the joke failed, it was our fault for getting the soundtrack wrong. 

He finished by acting out what our day-to-day working lives must be like in a routine that stretched the humour to breaking point. He spent nearly ten minutes of "Morning / See you tomorrow" with affirmations of colleague recognition covering the entire working week, Monday to Friday. This was probably the weakest part of the show, but that amused him.    

The one moment of sincerity came when he confessed to realising during lockdown that no matter how much he despises his audience, it's difficult to do his comedy without them. After the show, he sold merch and signed autographs in the foyer. I didn't wait. I'm back to my usual humdrum work life tomorrow. 

Good night.

Sam Campbell: Wobservations. The Garage, Wed 13th March, 2024

I didn't know what to expect from this gig. Sam comes across as a funny oddball on TV, but I hadn't seen any of his stand-up. He has pedigree, though, as he won the Edinburgh Award for Best Show of the Fringe in 2022. He also sold out a solo performance of "Bulletproof Ten" at last year's Fringe at the Pleasance Grand despite promoting that the show only lasted ten minutes. 

The ticket for tonight's gig said the doors opened at 8 p.m., but the GICF website said 7 p.m., so I arrived early, at 6.30 p.m., not wanting to take the risk. There was no queue, so we went across the road to the pub. By the time we'd downed our drinks, there were about twenty people waiting. 

My name wasn't on the attendee list, but I had printed out the tickets, so we were waved on. Unusually for such an event, the tickets weren't scanned. Then we waited in the bar area for the main hall to open. The staff opened the curtains just before showtime and, as the show was a sellout, insisted we fill each row in turn with no gaps, starting at the front. We ended up sitting bang in the middle of the second row. Perfect!

My pre-show view

We were packed in like sardines (which Sam referenced early in the show). I wondered if the seats were getting smaller or if I was getting bigger (thinking the latter), but my mate, who is thinner than a stick that's had its stomach removed, assured me it was the seats.   

Sam arrived on stage wearing sunglasses, which flew off his face up onto the balcony. From there, the weirdness continued. Sam's comedy is difficult to put into words. It's absurd, it's wacky, it's prankish, but most of all, it's funny. He asked a guy in the front row if he had keys. Sam got him to throw them onto the stage for Sam to catch using his special catching glove. Then Sam pinged the keys to a guy wearing the same type of glove at the side of the stage. The guy catches them, receives an audience cheer, then bolts off, with Sam admitting, "I don't know that guy", then corrects himself, saying, "I do know that guy. I just don't trust him". The poor punter had to wait till the very last moment of the show to get his keys back, and even then, the return was elaborate (involving a plant tub, a box of rice crispies, four litres of milk and a giant spoon, the keys being tossed into the pot from the balcony).

An Image from The bizarre video he played during the interval

We had a broken egg dangled over our heads using an extendable pole, the yoke dangling longer and longer, threatening to drip onto us (it was a foot long before he whisked it away - pun intended). He showed us screen grabs of text exchanges between him and a school, which resulted in him going in disguise to a parents' evening pretending to be the parent of the kid for whom he'd been receiving detention notifications. There was audience participation in a bizarre game show where the participants picked a number that revealed an Australian ad for life insurance. His PowerPoint work was extraordinarily bizarre. With his standup material, you never knew what was coming next.   

Sam is a unique talent, unlike anything I've ever seen. Hail to the weirdness! 

Ticket price £18 plus fees.

Blurb:  

Basically, we keep him in a metal crate. Once everyone is settled and the house lights go down, we will let him loose onto the stage.
It is our understanding that his comedy moments will DAZZLE you. His prefrontal cortex is larger than you might expect.
When he’s done/empty we shove him back in the crate and you will be allowed to return to your home. How does all that sound?
As seen on Taskmaster.

Judas Priest, "Invincible Shield" Tour, with special guests Saxon and Uriah Heep, OVO Hydro, Glasgow. Monday 11th March 2024

Between them, these bands have been around for over a hundred and fifty years and have put out sixty-eight studio albums. They've each been going through a renaissance period recently, receiving radio airplay for their well-received new material. So far, so good.

Tonight, they haven't managed to sell out the Hydro, with the top tier and upper sides curtained off. It is the first night of the tour, but the audience seems up for it despite it being a Monday night. Bizarrely for a metal gig, the venue is all seated.

First up: Uriah Heep.

They played a short set of five songs, four of which I recognised and enjoyed. The lead singer has a strong voice and the band were tight. My only issue was with the keyboard player, who seemed to take umbrage from time to time and insist on banging out any old nonsense on his old Joanna.

Setlist:

Save Me Tonight (Live debut)

Grazed by Heaven

Hurricane (Live debut)

Gypsy

Easy Livin'

Next up: Saxon.

For a support slot, I was surprised to hear them play so many numbers from the new album, Hell, Fire and Damnation. Biff's vocals were good, although a little too reliant on echo. The bit that bugged me was the way the lead guitarist kept throwing in a million extra notes to his solos as if trying to avoid copyright, changing the sound dramatically from the record. Once or twice would have been okay, but not all the time. It spoilt my enjoyment of an otherwise excellent set.

Setlist

The Prophecy (on tape)

Hell, Fire And Damnation (Live debut)

Motorcycle Man

Sacrifice

There's Something In Roswell (Live debut)

And the Bands Played On

Madame Guillotine (Live debut)

Power and the Glory

Fire And Steel (Live debut)

Dallas 1 PM (Crowd given choice between this and Crusader)

747 (Strangers in the Night)

Denim and Leather

Wheels of Steel

Princess of the Night     

Finally, Judas Priest.

I wanted to enjoy them—I really did. The staging was a bit mid-budget (with no side screens and a weird lighting rig in the shape of the new album's emblem), but the band was excellent, with some amazing guitar work and tight drumming, and they performed well as a unit. Rob Halford, on the other hand, came across like Uncle Albert (from Only Fools and Horses) trying out metal karaoke, reading most of the song lyrics from the stage monitor, then parading around as if wearing armour until it was time to sing another bit or go to his curtained snug for a change of jacket. He often missed his cue to be back on stage and sang the start of the song from behind the curtain several times. I get that he's old and a metal legend, but this is doing little to protect his legacy. When he failed to sing several choruses, instead turning the mike to the audience, I switched off. 

This was a performance to endure, not enjoy. A real disappointment. 

Setlist:

War Pigs (Black Sabbath song played on tape)

Panic Attack (Live debut)

Rapid Fire

You've Got Another Thing Comin'

Metal Gods

Lightning Strike

Love Bites (First time live since 2015)

Breaking the Law

Saints in Hell (First time live since 2019)

Trial by Fire (Live debut)

Turbo Lover

Invincible Shield (Live debut)

Beyond the Realms of Death

Victim of Changes

Screaming for Vengeance

The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown) (Fleetwood Mac cover)

Painkiller

Encore:

Hell Bent for Leather

Living After Midnight