REVIEW OF THE TWILIGHT SAD : GRAND OLE OPRY, GLASGOW : THURSDAY 9 FEBRUARY
The latest stop on the year long adventure was the Grand Ole Opry, the largest country and western club in the UK. It's a fantastic but very rarely used venue for gigs in Glasgow and located in a part of the city over in the south-west which in places hasn't changed since the 60s or 70s. There's no better illustration of this than our rendezvous for the pre-gig drinks...a pub called The Old Toll Bar...a pub for which the word traditional may very well have been invented.
It's no surprise that the pub is such a popular spot with filmmakers seeking to recreate a period feel. The décor doesn’t appear to have changed a bit since 1900....if it wasn't for some hand-written signs advertising modern drinking concoctions such as Jagerbombs and that it has a giant video screen showing the live darts on satellite telly then it was exactly the sort of pub my late grandad would have frequented when he was a young man. And the prices were also of a bygone age - £1.40 a vodka, £2 a double vodka and £1.99 for any pint.
The one mistake we made was leaving at 8pm to catch the support act. I don't like to use the blog to say anything detrimental about new and emerging bands so I wont say what I really thought about Let's Wrestle. But I won’t be rushing out to buy anything or catching them live again. Aldo was in agreement about this....
As we paid so little attention to the band on the stage, we were able to take in our surroundings.
The Opry really is an astonishing place. A little bit of Americana transported lock, stock and barrel of Jack Daniels to south-west Glasgow. Four big flags hang above the stage - the Scottish Saltire and Lion Rampant along with the Stars & Stripes and Confederate banner. The walls are painted with enormous murals that have clearly been inspired by the cowboy and indian films that my dad grew up with and which were such a staple of British TV in the late 60s and 70s. The bar and the very orderly queue control was entirely staffed by members of the Opry....a fantastic old woman who was at least 70 years of age was in charge of the side of the bar where we waited.....I asked if she'd brought her ear plugs but she said she hadn't. She then asked if I thought the band was going to be loud.......I started to worry for her as it hit me that nobody who was an Opry regular was surely prepared for what was to come.
The Twilight Sad took to the stage at 9pm. They left the stage at 10.10pm. I know this as next to the stage is a digital clock with bright red LED numbers circa 1980. They played 13 songs, the majority of which were drawn from the newly released LP No One Can Ever Know.
Before long, I was texting Jacques the Kipper who was unable to come through from Edinburgh (but who had gone along to a free acoustic show put on by the band at a local independent record shop just 24 hours earlier). My text said "Three songs in. Gig Of The Year."
Ten minutes later I was texting "It's getting better. This is genuinely astonishing. Threatening to be a Top 5 gig of all time."
Later on....."The best 35 minutes at a gig in years. It hasn’t let up at all."
I think you get the picture.
They opened with two new tracks....played an oldie...a new track....an oldie....new track....oldie.....two new tracks.....oldie.....new track......and closed with two oldies. It meant that anyone not fully familiar with a record that only hit the shops 80 hours before the gig wouldn't have long to wait till they recognised the tune being played. Interestingly....the two new songs omitted from the set list were the two that I highlighted in my LP review the other day as being what I perceived to the weakest efforts....
All five of the band were on top form. But unsurprisingly, it was Andy MacFarlane on guitar and James Graham on vocals who grabbed most attention. The layers of noise that Andy coaxed from his instrument made you think that there were at least three of him on stage....and he made it look so effortless. Not a single rock star pose or shape was thrown.
James gave what may well have been the performance of his life....it was impossible to take your eyes off him as bellowed out word after word in his distinctive West of Scotland brogue. Sometimes his vocals were lost amidst the sheer wall of noise....but that just seemed to spur him on to greater efforts. He would step away from the mike and let out an almighty roar as if unleashing a demon within him, step forward and take over again. It was, and this is no exaggeration, like watching and listening to the ghost of Ian Curtis prowl the tiny stage. His controlled rage on I Became A Prostitute was the most powerful moment of the night....but his stunning near accapella opening to Cold Days From The Birdhouse will be the abiding memory of a night that was almost but not quite perfect.
The one small hiccup....James' mic packed in just as he began to sing the first words of what proved to be the closing track, At The Burnside. By packing in, I mean it gave the most awful and ear-piercing interference....but it was quickly rectified with a change and the band stopping and going back to the beginning of the song. I'm not sure if this setback led to the band deciding not to play an encore - there were still a number of songs that might have been expected to be aired, particularly the 2010 single The Room - and only the band and their crew will know if the ending was as planned or the set was cut short. But it did seem to catch a lot of the audience by surprise that 70 minutes was our lot.
Still....that gave us time to head back across the road for a couple more drinks in The Old Toll. And then a 30 minute walk home with the biggest grin on my face in a long long long time.
Set List
1 Kill It In The Morning
2 Don’t Move
3 That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy
4 Dead City
5 Reflections of the Television
6 Alphabet
7 I Became A Prostitute
8 Sick
9 Another Bed
10 Cold Days From The Birdhouse
11 Nil
12 And She Would Darken The Memory
13 At The Burnside
Ladies and gentlemen. If you live in or near a town that The Twilight Sad will be visiting in the next few months....do yourself a huge favour and get along. You won't see many better in 2012.
mp3 : The Twilight Sad - Cold Days From The Birdhouse (live)
JC and Aldo, Sunday 12 February 2012
PS : Picture was nicked from here. Hope the snapper, Euan Robertson, doesn't mind. They're a great set of shots
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