Monday 29 January 2007

Uh. A welcome day off today after taking DG to the airport this morning at 6.30 and getting caught in an amazingly convoluted traffic diversion so that I spent 25 minutes getting back to the airport again after leaving it forcibly in the wrong direction.

Last night's gig was a hoot. We started by playing fiddle and melodica around the tables as the sellout audience came in, which was just a little uncomfortably like a sleazy tour of the tables in a restaurant, but most people grinned at us so I hope it didn't come across that way. After a couple of tunes, we swapped with Iain Macinnes and his pipes which seemed more appropriate.

Our short set seemed to go down fine, although following the Dhol Foundation on stage was a bit of a challenge in the dynamics department: "We're not as loud as them, sorry. We're just a wee quiet band." It was fun watching Celebrity Big Brother with them backstage though. My Estey got a thorough workout in the course of the evening: we played our Invercald's Rant set on it, played it for an Indian singer whose name I forget and for Michael Marra, and in the Burns Unit set I ended up playing ska on it, which I hadn't really bargained for. A sort of acoustic Jerry Dammers. What else? National treasure Alasdair Gray's reading from Burns was brilliantly funny and effortlessly erudite as you'd expect, and Hariprasad Chaurasia lent the evening a classical air as the entire hall stayed completely hushed for his 25 minute raga.

The Burns Unit set was just the sort of very entertaining happy shambles we expected. None of us knew how any of the songs were going to end, or indeed progress, so we just all felt our way towards musical comfort. It was great to have some of Sushil's legendary offbeat stage announcements, my favourite of the night being "Newsflash for those on the stage: the next song's in G." Me: "No it's not". S: "Isn't it? Oh." Some of our efforts at creating empty space in the dub sections were a bit too successful, as everyone just stopped playing, leaving wonderful big empty holes that still had a groove lurking in them somewhere: not bad when there are 10 people on stage. At one point, in attempt to fill these in, Sushil shouted over to me for suggestions: I did a big 1, 2, 3, 4 count-in, and ... nobody came in! Fantastic! We were all still in dub mode. Just before we went on, Karen Matheson mentioned to me that she wasn't exactly used to such a free approach: "I need structure in my life!" Raymond MacDonald, who is completely used to such a free approach, at one point contributed an amazing soprano sax workout in just the perfect place.

There are some great photos of the whole thing here.

For my 30 minutes of free time in Possil today, I was inspired by the weather to give the library a miss this time and drive round to Ruchill Park, where a 5 minute amble up the hill leads you to spectacular 360˚ views over the city and beyond. Hard to believe you're in an area of Glasgow that the tourist brochures prefer not to tell you about.