Missed most of his set, serves him right for clashing with Dr Who. Not sure who a Dalek/Human hybrid is going to turn out, if I was twenty years younger I'd be a bit scared, but now I just think he looks like a man in a costume. I see this series is still following the strategy of stealing monsters from the Wonderful World of Richard Scarry."Grr, the Daleks, up to their dirty tricks again,"
Second up was Emma Pollock formerly of the Delgados.
"So that's who they named the park after."
"What? Emma Park?"
I saw my flatmate, the singer from the Wolfknuckles, Blair B&S's video chap, Joe from The Great money Trick, Christoph who I keep getting introduced to, the folk from Sounds of Sweden, and I think I saw Erik from Wake the President.
I never really got into The Delgados back in the day, they weren't pop enough, my older brother had on of their albums. Emma seemed pleasant enough, fretting about telling the audience her name too many times, bless 'er.
The room darkened, The Mighty 'Ob trooped onstage to an old tape of Andy Stewart's Donald Where's Yer Troosers.
TracyAnne explained this was the last night of their 4-month tour and they were exhausted, and that she'd already spotted ten people she knew in the crowd. Aye, welcome home.
I'm sure she mangled the lines to some of the songs, maybe that's where Adam Plimpton gets it from, but after so many month of the road playing the same songs, like c'mon.
They've come a long way since playing the Cottiers Theatre with The Hermit Crabs in 2003. My flatmate tells me that Adam Plimpton almost got into a fight with with his fiancee's cousin there. I remember being very drunk. Could they actually have plotted their trajectory from there to here? Who would have thougt? Well, we never doubted for a second.
Their latest album, "Lets Get Out of This Country", is a Teenage Fanclub tip, moving on from Eighties Fan-era Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian production. The change seems to have paid off. Halfway through Alan the roadie walks on with the band's shopping from Tescos, the band now supplying music for TV advert, they shall be TopLoader 2.
Gav on bass had a small Tardis money box on his bass amp, I wonder if they have a TV backstage to watch Dr Who live or if he just videoed it for later.
They introduced Francoise, the secret seventh member of the band, covering on guitars, looking a little awkward on stage. How come he gets an introduction, but the ever dependable string sectrion don't?
This one time, last summer, I was wandering home and Cafe Indie was burning down in the evening, so I videoed it with my digital camera and pondered whetehr to sell the footage to the BBC for their news report, or string the clips together to make a video for Razzle Dazzle Rose. Its a beautiful song, and the overwhelming ending always gets me, with its kind of wall of sound thing going on and trumpet leading although buried under all the other instruments.
And invisible tear ran down my cheek during the encore cover of ABBA's Super Trouper, a thousand people singing "I was sick and tired of Everything, When I called You Last Night From Glasgow"
Ooh, Carey on keyboards looked foxier than last time I saw them play.
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