Haxan Cloak and Fuck Buttons, SWG3, Glasgow

Just a quickie to say totally loved the gig at SWG3 tonight, although it will be a while before I can hear again.

Support act The Haxan Cloak (London based producer Bobby Krlic) showed what way things were going as his deep droning bass was loud enough to make my trouser legs vibrate. His latest album "Excavations" is apparently an instrumental contemplation on the journey you take after death. It is dense and dark, but the volume I play it at in my house didn't prepare me for the reverb on that bass inside the concrete box that is the warehouse at SWG3.

Fuck Buttons at SWG3

Next up was an hour and a half of the Fuck Buttons. I'd seen them do a great show at Stereo previously in Glasgow, where they seemed to guddle about in a suitcase full of electronic toys. Now they've got bigger and better toys and light shows to play with. As well as plenty from their new album Slow Focus, there were some oldies too, including a jazzed up version of Surf Solar, the tune which opened the Olympic opening ceremony in 2013 bizarrely enough. I was glad that they found room for Prince's Prize as it is my kids' favourite one from the album when I play it at home. They think it sounds like "an underground level of Mario" - no idea what that means.

It was a great show, played at a great volume, with my scalp and chest wall thrumming along in time to the music at times. I'm guessing it's too late for me to buy some of those ear plug things all the kids seem to wear.

Running Route Around Glasgow Commonwealth Games Venues: Part 1

(Sept 2013 Part 2 here)
(June 2014 - venue update here)


The Commonwealth Games kick off in Glasgow in July 2014 and the deadline for the first batch of ticket applications is the 16th of September. Like many people I've put in a clutch of applications for me and my family and am waiting to see how many I've got before deciding whether to apply for some of the other sports on offer. It is an eccentric collection of sports that are in the Commonwealth Games, I guess the clue for that being the fact that these were originally the British Empire Games, but with countries participating including Jamaica, Australia, Canada, Kenya and Vanuatu there will be a host of top athletes on show.

Whatever tickets I get there will still be the marathon and the road cycling to be watched on the streets of Glasgow. The recent National Road Race Championships through the city streets showed what an entertaining spectacle these will be. Work is ongoing to get all the venues ready. As I'm running the Great Scottish Run half marathon in Glasgow in 4 weeks time the distances for my training runs of a Sunday morning are having to increase, and as I get easily bored, I devised a couple of wee 13 mile/ 20km routes around the Commonwealth Games venues to see what progress is being made on them. So if you want to run, cycle or walk around these places let me tell you what route I chose and what I saw.

Route 1. Glasgow Venues North of the River. A 20km Loop

Kelvingrove Lawn Bowls Centre

I started at Kelvingrove Park, where the bowling greens present one of the most photogenic venues with Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Glasgow University in the background. The greens have all been re-laid and temporary seating will be in place for spectators during the games. As someone who goes out jogging through the streets of Glasgow regularly I am forever amazed at the number of bowling clubs that I stumble across hidden up various side streets in all parts of the city. I have messed about on these particular greens before, as like all of the city council run greens they are free to play on, so make a fine way to distract the kids for a wee half hour. They used to also let you play croquet on these greens. When I was younger I had to explain to the man in the booth that in my enthusiasm for this game, the rather violent rules we were making up ourselves, I had managed to snap their mallet.

The Hydro, Clyde Auditorium and SECC

Heading along Argyle Street and then south down Finnieston Street you pass the Hydro with the Clyde Auditorium (or Armadillo) and Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) hidden in behind it. Despite the recent fire damage the Hydro seems to be on course to open soon and like a Vegas casino on the Clyde, I believe they plan to have Rod Stewart as the resident entertainer 6 nights a week until the games start. Once the games do start it will host the Artistic and Rhythmic Gymnastics and the finals for the Boxing. The Armadillo will be home to the Weight-Lifting and Para-Sport Powerlifting and the SECC will play host to the Netball, Boxing, Judo and Wrestling. On at the SECC later today was Scotland Comic Con and even though it was only 8am when I was running past here, the costumed Pokemon and Japanese anime attendees to this were already queueing.

From here I headed over the Squinty Bridge (I think Clyde Arc is the official name) and headed east along the river, crossing back to the north bank at the suspension bridge before Glasgow Green. Running through Glasgow Green I stumbled upon the cyclists heading off across to Edinburgh for the annual "Pedal for Scotland" event. As they passed the MacLennan Arch they were piped on their way. This arch was once the entrance to the Assembly Rooms on Ingram Street, built in 1796 and designed by Robert and John Adam. When the building was knocked down in 1892 to make way for the Post Office building the archway was moved initially to Greendyke Street near to here, and then in 1922 it shuffled into Glasgow Green.

Pedal for Scotland at Glasgow Green

Carrying on through Glasgow Green eastwards you arrive (after about 5.5km) at the football pitches where the newly built Glasgow National Hockey Centre is found. It looks a lovely facility and I suppose it must be getting used at present since they turned the sprinkler on just as I took my snap on my phone.

Glasgow National Hockey Centre

Carrying on eastwards I was keen to seek out the new Athletes' Village which is being built here and then will be housing for the local community once the Games have left town. This is being built in a piece of land between Dalmarnock Road, Springfield Road and the River Clyde and lies just east of the Emirates Arena. It is a major development and one can only hope that they have learnt from Glasgow's poor record over the last 50 years with housing developments. Maybe this time they will invest some money maintaining the properties and plan facilities for the residents (shops, health care services, decent schools and potential employers). You can only hope.

Sun shines down on the Athletes Village construction site in Glasgow

Athletes Village, Dalmarnock, Glasgow

Across the road from here is the impressive structure that houses the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and the Emirates Arena. That corporate naming thing I find grim. Are there many of the Dalmarnock locals that are going to wander past and think, "Oh, I fancy a 5 star trip to Dubai"? It just makes it suddenly seem something out of reach for those living in the neighbourhood, when it really is important it is a resource that the local people enjoy having and use. What would have been wrong with calling it the Dalmarnock Sports Arena? It is run by the council's arms-length "Glasgow Life" organisation so has a council run gym in it. Therefore you can go in for a nosey around the velodrome and the Arena, which can be used as an indoor running track. During the Commonwealth Games the Track Cycling will be held here and in the Arena, the Badminton competition.

The Chris Hoy Velodrome and "Emirates" Arena

Around the corner on London Road sits Celtic Park, where Partick Thistle will play the Glasgow Derby game this season on January 1st. Even at this early hour the place was a hive of activity as the stadium was hosting a sell out charity match later in the day, raising funds for Stiliyan Petrov's cancer charity.

Celtic Park, with the catering facilities for the Commonwealth Games being put in place

Celtic park will host the Opening Ceremony for the Commonwealth Games. Already some people are complaining that this may harm their chances of qualifying for next year's Champions League if they win the SPFL this year, as the early qualifying stages will have to be played elsewhere due to this. I presume that they could have said "no" to being paid for the use of their ground next July, but as Ibrox is hosting the Rugby 7's maybe they were wanting to get in on the act too. There is a precedent in the city for this venue-shifting not helping the "home" team . The first ever European Cup game played in Glasgow was at Partick Thistle's Firhill Stadium; Djurgardens IF vs Hibernian in November 1955. The Swedes used it as their home fixture as their own ground was frozen, but lost 3-1, and then lost the "away" leg five days later in Edinburgh 1-0.

Tollcross Baths, or Tollcross International Swimming Centre

Okay, so on to the last Commonwealth venue of this route. Go east along London Road for almost a kilometre and once you've passed 10km turn left up Maukinfauld Road, past the McVities biscuit factory and into Tollcross Park at the top. If you zig-zag north through the park you'll come out at the "Tollcross International Swimming Centre" as it is now named. Here Glasgow's 50m pool has been upgraded and is re-opened with the extra seating still being added along the rear end of the building today. Alternatively you can go instead to the excellent wee Children's Farm in the park, but the glasshouses are out of action.

Steam Hammer at Beardmore Park

From here you can go a wee bit further north and you'll emerge onto Shettleston Road near to the ground of the mighty Shettleston Juniors, where Tommy Docherty started his footballing career. Heading back west to get back to the start you'll soon come to a giant steel hammer at a junction, which marks the industry which turned the small weaving village into the Parkhead which exploited the local coal deposits and became home of the Beardmore's famous Parkhead Forge. Like somebody mocking this heritage a rather depressing shopping centre carries this name now. It sits like a spaceship which has thrown up a crater of wasteground around it on landing.  Forking left at the steel hammer you'll head down Westmuir Street and pass the beautiful Victorian buildings which stand at Parkhead Cross. Continuing east along the Gallowgate past the Eastern Necropolis (where the remains of Alexander Cruikshanks lie, a goalkeeper for Strathclyde FC, who died during a match in 1932), you will arrive at the Barrowland Ballroom. It always looks a bit sad during the day when its big glitzy light isn't on, but at this time on a Sunday the Barras market was on. A veritable League of Nations of eager customers was rushing past me to inspect the roll ends of linoleum and fluorescent shell suits that I spotted for sale along the streets.

Barrowlands Ballroom and the Barras market

Heading into the city centre I passed George Square after 18km which is presumably now getting its Commonwealth Games makeover. After Gordon Matheson got his controversial plans rejected to re-jig the square and make it a bit more corporate friendly, the council agreed to do what everyone wanted in the first place. Tidy it up a bit, remove the tatty red tarmac and put some of the grass beds back in place. Anyway I guess this is what is happening behind the barriers, to at least give visitors to the city centre a more handsome square to remember us by.

George Square and the Commonwealth Games hoardings

So head up St Vincent Street and that's you back at the bowling greens of Kelvingrove Park. It was heartening to see so much going on in town with the ComicCon, hockey players heading out to their pitch, cyclists off to Edinburgh, a full house at Celtic Park and the Barras market in full swing. The George Square hoardings remind me that I haven't found the table tennis and squash venues yet. So that is where I'm headed next.

(June 2014 - update on venues here)

Running Around the Commonwealth Games Venues: Part 2

The Commonwealth Games kick off in Glasgow in July 2014 and the deadline for the first batch of ticket applications is the 16th of September. Like many people I've put in a clutch of applications for me and my family and am waiting to see how many I've got before deciding whether to apply for some of the other sports on offer. It is an eccentric collection of sports that are in the Commonwealth Games, I guess the clue for that being the fact that these were originally the British Empire Games, but with countries participating including Jamaica, Australia, Canada, Kenya and Vanuatu there will be a host of top athletes on show.

Whatever tickets I get there will still be the marathon and the road cycling to be watched on the streets of Glasgow. The recent National Road Race Championships through the city streets showed what an entertaining spectacle these will be. Work is ongoing to get all the venues ready. As I'm running the Great Scottish Run half marathon in Glasgow in 4 weeks time the distances for my training runs of a Sunday morning are having to increase, and as I get easily bored, I devised a couple of wee 13 mile/ 20km routes around the Commonwealth Games venues to see what progress is being made on them. So if you want to run, cycle or walk around these places let me tell you what route I chose and what I saw.

Route 2. Scotstoun, Hampden and Ibrox, a 22km loop

Clyde Auditorium (Armadillo) and The Hydro

Yesterday I ran around some of the Commonwealth Games venues in Glasgow, and today I had a quick scout around the other Glasgow venues as I want to do another 13 mile training run next weekend as I get ready for the Great Scottish Run. I had decided to leave off the diving venue (Royal Commonwealth Pool, Edinburgh), the Mountain Bike Course on Cathkin Braes (although that appealed as it was where Benny Lynch went on his training runs) and also the Barry Buddon Shooting venue in Carnoustie.

SECC with BBC studios across the Clyde

So I started at the SECC where the Hydro, SECC and Armadillo will be hosting the Boxing, Netball, Judo, Wrestling, Weightlifting and Gymnastics during the Commonwealth Games. I then headed west along the Cydeside.

Glasgow Museum of Transport (and a big crane?)

Passing the new Transport Museum you only get a hint of the industry that used to fill the banks of the River Clyde with the cranes of Govan shipyards downstream from here. Heading down by the river along South Street, you'll soon pass the site of Partick Thistle Football Club's Meadowside ground from 1897-1908, on the opposite bank from Govan shipyards, now blocks of modern flats.

Govan Shipyards on the south bank of the Clyde, the Meadowside flats on the north

Other shadows of the shipbuilding days are soon seen in the "Harland Cottages" on South Street, bearing the name of the Harland& Wolff yard that used to run seven building berths in their yard in Govan. Turning right into Harland Street at about the 5km mark and going straight up through the side streets you'll soon come to what I knew as Scotstoun Showgrounds when I was younger. Although initially used for agricultural shows, by 1915 it already had an athletics track and grandstand here. Since those days it has had a modern running track laid and Scotstoun Stadium is used now by Glasgow Warriors Rugby team. Alongside that there are 5-aside football pitches, a swimming pool, a gym, squash and badminton courts.

Scotstoun Sports Centre

However Scotstoun is neither hosting the Badminton nor the Rugby 7s. The Squash will be played here during the Commonwealth Games, but not without some controversy. As well as using the 6 permanent squash courts, a temporary glass walled show court will be built for the games but afterwards will be dismantled and will not be available for Glasgow to host prestige squash tournaments in the future. The Table Tennis is also going to be on here, presumably being held in the area where the Badminton courts are.

Fossilised Crazy Golf in Victoria Park which will bamboozle the archaeologists of tomorrow

So from here it was time to head through neighbouring Victoria Park and get south of the river Clyde. As a teenager I was often in Victoria Park but the rowing boats and Crazy Golf that I used to play on are long gone. The fantastic Fossil Grove is still here and I think that it is mental that we don't, as a city make more noise about the fact that you can come and see 325 million year old fossilised tree stumps in the place that they once grew.

Clyde Tunnel Cyclepath

Once you've gone through the underpass at the expressway you can get into the Clyde Tunnel cyclepath from Dumbarton Road. Where the entrance of the Clyde Tunnel now sits was once home to Partick Thistle Football Club from 1885-1897, Inchview. If you are running or walking it doesn't matter which of the two pedestrian tunnels you go down, but if cycling you need to go with the flow of traffic. The cycle tunnel is about 1km long and isn't as scary as it used to be, with the controlled entry at each end, a fresh lick of paint inside recently added to brighten it up and it no longer even smells like a urinal.

 

Mrs Elder in Elder Park

Coming out in Govan you can head towards the shipyards and then veer south through Elder Park if you want to see one of only three women immortalised in statue in Glasgow. Here can be found Mrs Isabella Elder, who created the park to remember her shipbuilding husband. She was of a philanthropic bent and particularly supportive of the education of women. She bought North Park House on Queen Margaret Drive (which later became home of the BBC) and presented it to Queen Margaret's College to use for female medical education. Her statue is of its time and, despite her efforts, women knew their place in those days so the plaque at the base of the statue records her name as "Mrs John Elder". The other two statues of women in the city are Queen Victoria astride her horse in George Square and Dolores Ibarruri, 'La Passionara', with fists clenched in the air down by the Clydeside.

Ibrox Stadium, 11 km into this route

If you've found your way through the streets and industrial units around here you'll emerge at what I suspect will be one of the easiest venues to get tickets for during the Commonwealth Games, Ibrox Stadium, which will host a weekend of Rugby Sevens. With a capacity of 50,000 you would expect there will be tickets available for this although the world's major rugby nations will all be here for the tournament. It is a wee bit tricky to find your way through the side streets of Pollokshields to get from Ibrox to the last Commonwealth Games venue today, Hampden Stadium.

Hampden Bowling Club

If you cross Paisley Road West, there is a path that goes over the M8 then under the M77. You should then come out onto leafy Nithsdale Road and head left for a couple of kilometres, crossing Pollokshaws Road and heading up to "Scotland's National Stadium" as it now seems to be branded. I was always under the impression that it was primarily "home to Queens Park Football Club". No matter how you've got here you will undoubtedly have passed a couple of Bowling Clubs on the way, surely confirming that we must be in with a chance of a few medals here.

Hampden Park

Football will be banned for most of a year in Hampden as it prepares to host 8 days of Track and Field events and the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony. For this to happen there is still a track to be laid in Hampden, which will involve raising the area at the edge of the pitch and slightly reducing the capacity by taking out the front rows. With Usain Bolt declaring that a Commonwealth Games title is still one which he wants to get, to complete his collection, it could be that all eyes will be on Hampden during these days.

Terracing at Cathkin Park, once home to Third Lanark FC

I find it impossible to go for a run out this way without sticking my head in to see the sad sight that is Cathkin Park, once home of Third Lanark Football Club before their demise in 1967. Today the weed covered terracing waved in the wind like a ghostly crowd, oblivious to the man from the council in his wee lawnmower doing handbrake turns on the pitch whilst cutting the grass. From here it is a wee run down Aitkenhead Road then turn right and down Cathcart Road. You will pass the shell of the Alexander "Greek" Thomson designed Caledonia Road Church which stands empty and purposeless in a traffic island here, a remnant of the once mighty Gorbals. From here, cross over the Clyde and head back along the north bank of the river to get back to the start at the SECC.

22km or 13.5 miles, another wee route to vary my training for the Great Scottish Run in October.


Caledonia Road Church, by Alexander "Greek" Thomson

Partick Thistle Away Days - Paisley

31st August 2013. St Mirren 1 - 2 Partick Thistle

 

 

Being less than a year old when Partick Thistle won the Scottish League Cup in 1971 it was a while before I got to see them win anything. Mine is a team which you follow more in hope than in expectation. This made the league title triumph last year all the more special. Part of our reward for finally emerging from the First Division is the chance to get away from playing the same old teams year on year, ad nauseam. Some old rivalries are re-visited, such as with St Mirren this weekend. It feels like a meeting with distant cousins that you haven't seen for a decade but immediately fall into the same old conversations you were having back then. St Mirren have followed a similar up and down history to Partick Thistle and their League Cup success of last year was a rare high for the team and manager Danny Lennon.

 

The last time that I was in St Mirren's old ground at Love Street was in 2002. Danny Lennon was captain of the Thistle team that day I think, with Alan Archibald and Scott Paterson playing alongside him. Today they would all be in opposing dug-outs. Derek Fleming scored the second goal that day, breaking his leg in the process, but securing our promotion and exacting revenge on the team who had relegated us here six years earlier. That match was marked by my wife wearing a soggy Scotch pie whilst we drank curry flavoured champagne on the way home. When Thistle's first goal went in somebody's pie was launched high into the air as we all leapt to our feet. It came down with sufficient force to kind of explode on landing on my wife's head, being mushy enough to give her hair the full hot oil and mutton beauty treatment. Planning ahead we had a bottle of bubbly with us in case promotion was secured and had picked up some polystyrene cups from a local shop in case we had the chance to drink it. Unbeknown to us these appeared to have been stored beside the shop's spices and carried a pungent curried aroma which they flavoured our celebratory drink with. Curried champagne, you should try it.

 

Since that day St Mirren had gone and got themselves a new stadium, so there was the added pleasure of ticking off another ground I had never been in before on today's visit. As I had ran the Paisley Life 10K last weekend through the streets of the town I had a wee idea where I was going this weekend as the race route went around the abbey and then out past St Mirren Park, the 8,000 capacity ground the team have been playing for the past four years. 1500 people ran the race that day and we brought that plus an extra 100 to town with our usual decent travelling support.

 



When we slumped down through the divisions in the late nineties I kept going along to games despite, I think, going for 2 years without catching a Partick Thistle victory. Part of the draw at that time for me was the strange wee towns I got to see. It is unlikely I would have visited Forfar, Methil or Arbroath in those years if it wasn't for the sake of following my team around the country. I do hope that some of The Rangers fans doggedly watching their team through the lower leagues manage to enjoy the experience and maybe reconnect with what football means to some of the people in these places. Even if it is just the excuse to wander into a local boozer that you wouldn't normally go near, wearing the football scarf of an visitor gives you permission to come in and usually triggers off some random conversation with a complete stranger. I usually like pitching up a couple of hours early and having a wee stot about beforehand to get a feel for the place or pretend I'm a tourist just arrived from outer space to see what they'd make of my country.

Despite Paisley being only a few train stops away I have never really spent much time in it since Arnotts shut down and my granny had no reason to be driven here. When I was previously addicted to tracing my family tree it all led down in this direction, I can trace them back to farmland just south of Paisley in the 1640s. Then over the next few hundred years like many people in this part of the world at that time, weaving became their trade, before their descendants followed the heavy industries into Glasgow. With my children in tow for the football at 3pm I arrived nice and early in Paisley and looked around the Paisley Museum. We didn't have time today to look around the Coats Observatory which is part of it, Scotland's oldest public observatory. It was gifted to the town by the Coats family who made their fortune in the silk thread and weaving industry the town was famous for throughout the world. Less impressive than the Paisley pattern and Paisley shwls on show is Buddy the moth-eaten lion, sufficiently famous in these parts to justify the balloons on sale in the shop announcing that "Buddy the lion is back in Paisley!"

Following the weaving thread (gerrit?) we headed to Sma' Shot Cottage, an old weavers cottage in the town which shows you living conditions and looms from the times before the industrialisation of weaving, when people worked at their own looms at home, like my ancestors in nearby Kilbarchan. Amongst the olde worlde stuff on show I liked the jeelie pan lying on the floor, because we had picked a lot of berries recently up the road at East Yonderton Farm and made jam using one identical to this, which used to belong to my wife's great-granny. The volunteers working there were falling over themselves to tell us all about the history of the place and that of the Sma' Shot strike of 1856. The guide was a pains to tell us that the annual Paisley Sma' Shot day that marks the anniversary of the strike is not commemorating the gifting of the fee by the bosses as the local paper apparently claimed last year, but to mark the efforts of the strikers who forced it out of them. The "Sma' Shot" was a hidden thread that held the delicate work of these Paisley weavers together. Despite the thread being an essential component of their work, as it was hidden it was felt that this thread didn't merit payment. With rebellion in the air across Europe at that time the weavers had the full force of the law brought against them and were taken to court. A member of the Coats family, who were not exactly impartial observers in the dispute, was on the jury of the case and apparently pushed for compromise at that late stage and they were awarded their payment.

As it is celebrating its 850th anniversary this year we also stuck our heads into Paisley Abbey. It was established in 1163 on the site of an old Celtic church founded 600 hundred years earlier by St Mirin. It is thought to be where local Renfrewshire lad William Wallace was educated by the monks of the abbey. It wasn't until 1877 that St Mirin got round to founding a local football team in his name to keep the local weavers distracted when they weren't at work or church.

The abbey has undergone restoration work in recent years and new gargoyles were commissioned as part of this. Amongst some of the wackier ones can be seen an Alien style monster emerging from the side of the abbey in the style of one emerging from John Hurt's stomach. Briefly peering through the windows of the home of  "the weaver poet" Robert Tannahill en route, we walked up to St Mirren's new ground. There was a fantastic crowd behind the goal at the Thistle end for the match (BBC highlilghts available here to viewers in the UK), although our players tried to pick off a few with their pre-match shooting practice. About a dozen stray shots were blasted at us and one unfortunate ricochet caught a more elderly fan on the back of the head knocking him down the stairs where his fall was broken by another. Patched up by the St Andrew's ambulance first-aiders he was thankfully able to watch the match, but we had a measure of where Thistle's shots would be aimed for the first 80 minutes of the match. If points were awarded in this league for passing and possession I am pretty sure we'd have a European place in the bag by Christmas. Unfortunately it is goals that points get awarded for and that proved more elusive for us. Thistle shouts for a penalty went unheeded by Willie Collum as Baird was bundled over in the box and clear chances were in short supply at the goal under us in the first half. Against the run of play St Mirren scored after 50 minutes when a cross from the corner was turned in at the near post. Thistle just kept playing football though. Pass, pass, pass our familiar mantra from last season. Eventually after a wee back-heel from Craigen I think, Higginbotham swept it into the net from the edge of the box and two minutes later Forbes's left foot turned defeat into victory. Every point this season could be important but these were 3 points I thoroughly enjoyed watching us get. Unfortunately for Danny Lennon, despite his recent League Cup success this means his position is now under pressure and St Mirren are only kept off the bottom of the league by Hearts and their 15 point deduction.

 

With that I'll leave you with Robert Tannahill's words, maybe he is thinking of St Mirren with these lines.

 

On A Crabbed Old Maid.

Here slaethorn Mary's hurcheon bouk
Resigns its fretful bristles:
And is she dead? No—reader, look,
Her grave 's o'ergrown wi' thistles.

Our own olde worlde jeelie pan in action last month 

David Byrne and St. Vincent, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

David Byrne's Talking Heads must surely have appealed to everyone who like me was 13 or 14 when "Road To Nowhere" was released. As well as the catchy tune, their use of these new-fangled video things was pretty unique and memorable. They were at their peak before I was actively buying records or going to concerts, so I was a Johnny-come-lately to David Byrne's output. I have though bought much of what he has been doing over the past 20 years, including stuff like his "Young Adam" soundtrack and his excellent book from last year "How Music Works". So I jumped at the chance of seeing Mr Byrne performing at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall this week.

As well as coming over as effortlessly cool and groovy he is, of course, essentially Scottish (these two facts are not unrelated). Born in Dumbarton his family emigrated to America when he was only 2 years old, but we know that he was back in the mother country last night, even if he was too serene to make any mention of it. Whatever reason we were there for he had a full house at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. The current album he is touring with is "Love This Giant" a collaboration with St. Vincent (Annie Clark). Her last album, Strange Mercy, is worth looking up if you haven't come across it already. Love This Giant is a complicated collection with slick production and lots of brass, so I was intrigued to see how they'd do this live. As it turns out they did it with slick production and lots of brass. He wanted you to sit and watch, so started with an announcement asking people to take photos if they wanted but not to watch the show through "a device", blocking everyone else's view - a request greeted with a heartfelt round of applause. (I'm fed up watching a band between a wee cluster of the people's phone screens).

Exhibition of brass instruments?

As you'd expect from someone with an eye for the visual effect as much as the aural (remember the big suit?) the whole show was carefully arranged and choreographed. For 2 hours the fantastic 8 piece brass section danced, marched and manoeuvred around the stage between the jerky robotic dancing of Annie Clark and the affected dad-dancing of David Byrne. Her guitar playing was warm and precise and the whole show has obviously been worked on and rehearsed for many an hour to end up looking this effortless. The brass sounded funky and jazzy but not ever cheesy. I love a bit of brass, and despite having been to many a Ska gig over the years have never seen a brass section as classy as this. (If only I hadn't stopped the trumpet lessons at school after 2 years, that could have been me up there!)

It was good to get a smattering of the solo material from both of them in amongst almost all the tracks of their joint album. St. Vincent's "Cheerleader" and his "Lazy" were stand outs. Talking Heads' "Wild, Wild Life" also featured, which apparently he hasn't performed live until doing this tour despite releasing it in 1986. The crowd of the venerable Concert Hall were on their feet for the encores which included "Burning Down The House" and finished with "Road To Nowhere" snaking around the stage with a brass band conga.

A great show and great performances all round.

Edinburgh. This Looks A Bit Like Alexei Sayle

Banksy: The Room In The Elephant. Pleasance Courtyard

Edinburgh Art Festival

Alexei Sayle. The Stand Comedy Club

Marcus Brigstoke, "Je m'accuse - I am Marcus". Assembly Hall

Brief reviews from my second trip through from Glasgow to the Edinburgh Fringe this year. I wanted to see some comedians this time, but as they don't wake up until the afternoon there was time to squeeze in some other stuff first.

We started off by going to see the exhibition on Mary, Queen of Scots at the National Museum of Scotland. It is an absolutely fascinating collection of stuff and the story of her life reads like a ludicrous Hollywood plot. I know the history of a nation is not the same as the history of its kings and queens but it is a story worth hearing. I've been inspired to try to find out more as it is a period of European history that ties me in knots. John Knox seems to have been a constant thorn in her side. As well as her Catholicism he wasn't big on female monarchs either apparently. A proper ray of sunshine he seems to have been.

Whilst promoting his film "Exit Through The Gift Shop" in LA in 2011, graffiti artist Banksy got chatting to a homeless man who had been living in a disused water tank. With his permission wrote "This looks a bit like an elephant" on the side of it. Cue rapacious grasping for ownership of a Banksy work (which the artist refused to authenticate) and Tachowa Covington was made homeless. Here Gary Beadle off of Eastenders plays the man who had made his home in the tank for the 7 years before meeting Banksy (as Titus Coventry here). The story asked lots of questions about what makes art 'art' without really giving any answers. Gary Beadle's was a gripping one-man turn, as he debated issues with the toy rat he had for company (a recurring Banksy motif) and Bristolian music from Portishead and Massive Attack occasionally broke in. However in a surreal twist at the end we were introduced to the man himself, Tachowa Covington. He is over from LA and saw the show for the first time himself today. A lovely twist that slaps you in the face with the fact that this is a real life being recounted. The man himself had dressed up in a purple kilt and a fedora to mark the occasion. You can only hope that he manages to get some personal benefit from the play, to help him get what he wants in life. Shame we never got to hear his thoughts on it and I hope some journalists are all over him tonight to hear his tale.

After that we had time to dash about some of the exhibitions which are part of the Edinburgh Art Festival. One of the best is in the ever-reliable Fruitmarket Gallery where there is an exhibition of paintings, photography and sculpture by Gabriel Orozco, Thinking In Circles, in which the geometric motif is played out in a variety of ways. The centrepiece is a painting called The Eye of Go. This I liked as I have read a couple of Japanese novels and a manga which feature the game of Go, played with black and white discs. GO is also the artist's initials and a verb which opens up a variety of meanings. (D'you see what he's did there?). If you look at them long enough you start to see Mickey Mouse too.

The Eye of Go, Gabriel Orozco

There has been a lot of love for the Peter Doig exhibition on at the Scottish National Gallery, No Foreign Lands. The Scottish-born artist, little known in his own country, has lived extensively in Trinidad and this exhibition features works painted over the past 13 years since he returned there. The scale and vibrancy of the paintings is more remarkable in the flesh than in any of the reproductions of his paintings which I had seen in the papers before I went along to see it. Often there is a sun-bleached, dreamy quality to them. I liked the colour and composition whilst my wife was unimpressed with his draughtsmanship. Then again I quite like the primitive works of French painter 'Douanier' Rousseau whilst she hates them.

Keeping the Mary Queen of Scots theme going we had time to have a quick pint in the Queens Arms before wandering on via the Open Eye Gallery who have a interesting show of Alberto Morrocco's early works and sketches on show. I'm personally not a big fan of a lot of his later work but his skill shone through in these. I particularly liked the pen and ink sketch of a drunk man falling asleep on the train. Around the corner in the National Portrait Gallery on Queen Street, there is a temporary exhibition of new work by someone else who can definitely draw. Ken Currie's work is painterly, skillful and full of atmosphere. To be honest seeing these made me re-appraise my opinion of Peter Doig's stuff we'd seen earlier as these paintings had so much more to them on many levels.

John Knox scowls at Mary Queen of Scots in the Portrait Gallery

Running upstairs past the mural featuring Mary, Queen of Scots (once you start noticing her she's everywhere) we went to see the Man Ray photographs, a fascinating collection of people captured by his camera. The Fleece to Fibre exhibition in Dovecote Galleries is worth looking in at, if for nothing more than the spectacular photograph portraits of the sheep. I also liked Rachel MacLean's slightly mental exhibition on at Edinburgh Printmakers, I Heart Scotland. A bizarre spectacle, as if the souvenirs from a tacky tourist shop have come alive in her photomontages but done with a great sense of humour. Her Lion and the Unicorn film maybe shows where the independence debate should be going instead of the current petty sniping we have to endure.

Alexei Sayle doesn't stand still when doing stand up

So as the galleries closed their doors it was obvious that the comedians were waking up. We had passed Jerry Sadowitz, Tim Vine and John Lloyd in the streets but we weren't here for them. Alexei Sayle is a comedy legend as far as I'm concerned. He first entered my consciousness as the shouty, angry landlord and various random, mental members of the Balowskis family in the Young Ones TV show, before going on to have his own TV series of monologues and rants. One time member of the Communist Party, actor in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and if you haven't read any of his novels then you are missing a treat. I shouldn't forget "Hello John, Got a New Motor" either as it appears to be one thing he reports that people still expect him to do. As the original compere of the London Comedy Store he was present at the birth of "alternative comedy" but hasn't done stand up himself for about 16 years. As you'd hope, he is a bit vitriolic about the current banal level of observational comedy and also pillories the current upper class stranglehold of media, the arts and government. Apart from the fact that he had something to say, he was also laugh out loud funny whilst saying it.

We were given a free firework display from the Tattoo whilst we waited to get into the Assembly Halls on the Mound, where we were greeted by a statue of John Knox as we made our way in, snarling over the temporary bar set up here. Is it the piece which he wrote called "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women" that they commemorate here with this statue or some other achievement of his?

Marcus Brigstocke is the omnipresent voice of liberal ire on Radio 4 comedy programming at present. He seems to have had a couple of shows on in Edinburgh this year, and 2 days into a three week run here he tells us that he tore his achilles whilst jiggling about on stage. He has soldiered on and starts by saying he'd decided not to do any political stuff this year. So instead we got rather banal observational stuff. His tales of his boarding school and the scary working class people he met on the oil rigs felt a bit hollow after Alexei's sharper stuff earlier. I like Marcus Brigstocke and he seems a very nice chap. However I recognise the childhood world with the local Communist Party branch having meetings in your front room and eating all your biscuits more than I recognise the traumas of being a fat boy in boarding school.

Maybe by this time I'd had enough of the tipsy Edinburgh rugger types pushing into the queues or the plummy Morningside diners vacuous conversations at the table beside us for dinner ("But we're just not rich enough to pay the Gift Aid prices, are we dear?"). Time for the midnight train home to Glasgow where people either re-enacted Morocco's head-nodding drunken nap or blethered aimlessly to strangers.

I have only really started in the past couple of years making the effort to head east along the M8 for the festival. Obviously it is a hugely successful enterprise for the city, but I just wish they would make it feel a bit more inclusive. I know that in recent years they have consciously targeted those living in Glasgow's G12 area for ticket sales. I just wish that they'd make a bit more effort to attract those living in G15 and G34 as well. I like Edinburgh, but you can have it back now that the Fringe and Festivals are coming to an end.

Death and the Poet

Review: The Events by David Greig, Traverse Theatre

Review: The Poet Speaks, Philip Glass and Patti Smith, Edinburgh Playhouse

I took my first Edinburgh festivals trip along the M8 this year to take in Patti Smith and Philip Glass, but before that managed to squeeze in a visit to the Traverse to see David Greig's new play. On a late summer evening Edinburgh was looking very handsome I have to say.

Edinburgh

The Events deals with the aftermath of a mass shooting, where a survivor, played by Neve McIntosh looks for answers to the inevitable question - "Why?". There appears to be an understandable searching for a reason after these events (I'll use his word), people asking "why did it happen?", desperate to understand, to find some meaning in a pointless act. On Channel 4 just now the drama "Southcliffe" follows the lives of the perpetrator and the victims of a mass shooting in a fictional English market town. However when we get specific in this fiction, the close up attention to the detail of their lives in this TV drama, it begins to feel unreal, manipulative and fake as many real people have gone through these terrible incidents in the real world in their own individual ways. You end up thinking "that pub looks too busy" or "would you really say something like that?". You cannot help but think that the feelings that people affected do experience are unique to them and just unimaginable to someone who is not them. I'll watch Southcliffe to the end but it seems unsure what story it is trying to tell.

Rather bizarrely David Greig took a trip to visit Norway, researching the aftermath of the Anders Breivik shootings whilst writing the stage adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This led to some alarming (and incorrect) reports that he was writing a musical of the events which occurred in Utoya that day. What he did write was this play, The Events, which is showing just now at the Edinburgh Fringe before transferring to London. It does feature singing, but in the form of local choirs playing a Greek chorus to the story. The Events used similar devices to Southcliffe with flashbacks and different characters, played with gusto by Rudi Dharmalingham, flitting in and out. However the story here was more focused than the TV drama and the amateur choristers gave a stumbling feeling of real life to it all. The play worked well whilst walking a tight-rope of the sensitivities around the issues raised within it.

As Allen Ginsberg said in Father Death Blues,

Suffering is what was born

Ignorance made me forlorn

Tearful truths I cannot scorn

 

The many faces of Neve McIntosh

One last aside. Neve McIntosh's twitter profile reads "Actress and part time Lizard Queen!!!!". Is she at risk of being typecast? One minute she's tortured, guilt-ridden, lesbian vicar, Claire. Next she's Victorian sword-wielding, crime-fighting, lesbian Silurian, Madame Vastra who she plays in Doctor Who. Well, maybe not.

The other performance I'd specifically wanted to see in Edinburgh tonight was Philip Glass and Patti Smith's "The Poet Speaks", an evening in tribute to Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg. He died in 1997 and was a friend to them both. They've been doing these evenings together for a while now and it was the concept rather than any of three constituent parts (Glass, Smith and Ginsberg) that drew me to this show. The work of Philip Glass I have enjoyed without ever feeling particularly engaged by it, since I first heard it in Glasgow in 1990 (1000 Airplanes on the Roof - the projected backdrops is about all that I remember from that night). The "Beat Generation" is no more my generation than the flappers and Anita Loos were the generation of Ginsberg, Kerouac and William Burroughs. Their work has never grabbed me particularly and I find their books a bit self-obsessed.

Likewise, Patti Smith I think you either get or you don't get and I'd probably put myself in the latter camp (in much the same way that I "don't get" Jim Morrison). I struggle to see her as the "Godmother of Punk" that she is sometimes painted as. I like "Because The Night" as a Bruce Springsteen song rather than as a Patti Smith song and wouldn't be surprised to hear "People Have The Power" on a soap powder advert. It just doesn't seem to have any fire in its belly, the way a Gil Scott-Heron song or poem just does. My personal perception of her is more of a rather humourless, self-important individual who was in the right place at the right time to be part of a scene which on the whole generally leaves me a bit cold.

Patti Smith and Philip Glass

So I came to the Edinburgh Playhouse, which was filled to capacity, hoping to be proven wrong. Despite Ginsberg looking down on us from the projected photographs of the backdrop this was mainly about Patti Smith and Philip Glass. The meaningless, shamanistic ramblings of the shooter in The Events were rejected by Claire's choir for the gibberish that they were. Patti Smith however is someone who still appears happy to embrace the shamanistic affectations and eastern mysticism. She started the evening with her own poems which meandered through vague Earth-mother and Buddhist tropes (Notes to the Future, The Blue Thangka) whilst Philip Glass accompanied her on piano. Ginsberg's Witchita Vortex Sutra had more bite to it. She then read some of her favourite poems from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. Never can The Land of Nod have been read with such portentous earnestness. It ends with the line "The curious music that I hear" echoed in the line "Some strange music draws me in" in the verse of her song Dancing Barefoot which she followed it with. She repeated this trick with two other RLS poems (eg Looking-Glass River leading to her singing Pissing In A River with some gusto). Dedicating John Lennon's Beautiful Boy to Kate and William's wee George was a bit "yeuch". What was striking was the rhythm and pace Stevenson's poesy demonstrated in contrast to the earlier free verse.

Allen Ginsberg

More rhythmic again was Philip Glass who came back for an impressive run through excerpts from Metamorphosis and Etudes. Then Ginsberg's poems got a look in again towards the end with a rendition of the touching poem Aunt Rose and the strident anaphora marching out in Footnote to Howl and On Cremation of Chogyam Trungpa. The night was finished off with Tony Shanihan on guitar, Philip Glass on piano and Patti Smith singing her soft rock anthem People Have The Power, definitely a bit of a curio.

She certainly has a stage presence, but her serious, humourless, declamatory style (even when reading children's poems) I found a bit wearing.