Scotland
Jonathan Geddes
War might be good for absolutely nothing, but it does provide bands with some easy names. Before the War on Drugs headline set, Warpaint took to the stage, and despite a muted reaction to the quartet they were on enjoyable form. They’re unlikely to ever be topping the bill in arenas in their own right, but maybe that’s a good thing, and the funky closing double header of “New Song” and “Disco//Very” whipped by with pace and verve.Then again, the War on Drugs themselves seemed a long shot to become an arena band, even with a sound considerable in scope. Perhaps their booker had over-estimated Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Of all the Scottish bands to be name dropped at a Chvrches gig, the Bay City Rollers would be far down the list. Thankfully singer Lauren Mayberry was only citing the 70s group in reference to her tartan outfit, and not a surprise cover of “Shang-A-Lang”, but the Glasgow trio do share another similarity, in that they’ve proved to have considerable staying power in the pop world.As Mayberry noted later in the set, the 10th anniversary of their debut album is approaching later this year, but this night, the second of two homecoming shows, was more focused around the present rather than a Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
There was a youthful tinge to the jubilant chorus of “here we, here we, here we f****** go” that greeted Le Tigre arriving on stage. The band may have not released any new material in well over a decade, but the Glasgow crowd gathered for this reunion show was not simply those who remembered the first time but an all ages mixture, which is a reflection on both the power of the trio’s music and a depressing indictment of the cultural and political issues that still imbue the group’s tunes with relevance.The latter factor did, at least, have a musical benefit, as at no point did this gig ever Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
There are a few perils to saying supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as Janette Manrara discovered on this opening night of Disney’s anniversary arena jaunt. Trying to divide the Glasgow crowd into sections to sing the song, Manrara tripped over who was to sing what, something only notable because the rest of the evening was possessed of an almost overpowering slickness.Although the opening overture went all the way back to Steamboat Willie, nearly all of the set, which featured a full orchestra, a rotating array of singers supplied from the West End and a likeable, cheerful hostess in Read more ...
David Kettle
Anyone expecting to see the Big Yin himself, Gary McNair breathlessly explains as he dashes on stage, should nip out and ask the box office for a refund. It’s an ice-breaking gag that sets the tone nicely for McNair’s fast-moving, often snort-inducingly funny tribute to Billy Connolly, whose production by the National Theatre of Scotland is touring the country until the end of June.And yes, there’s an undeniable resemblance between the two men, something that Glasgow-based actor/writer McNair puts to good use at certain key points in his big-hearted celebration of the legendary Scottish Read more ...
David Kettle
How do you cram a thousand-page novel, a cast of dozens and profound philosophical ponderings on love, fidelity, class and freedom into a two-and-a-half hour stage show? If you’re Lesley Hart – adapter of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre (from where it hops down south to Bristol Old Vic in June) – it’s with nimbleness, clear-sighted focus, and really quite a lot of swearing.We’ll come back to the profanities. In terms of adaptation, though, Hart’s stage version has a lot going for it. Okay, it inevitably feels crammed-in at times – the famously tone-setting grisly end for Read more ...
Kozhukhin, BBCSSO, Menezes, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - shimmering Saariaho and moody Mendelssohn
Miranda Heggie
How apt that on her first visit to Scotland, Italian-Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes would lead the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Mendelssohn's Third Symphony, the “Scottish”. Though there may not be many particularly "Scottish" sounding melodies in this piece, its overall sound conjures up the brooding moods of the Scottish landscape.One scene which was particularly evident here was of an angry Atlantic, the body of water Mendelssohn would have crossed to reach the Hebrides, the group of western islands which inspired his famous overture, written at the same time Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Before even a note was struck, Yard Act’s singer James Smith was setting the bar high. “Over the past two days everyone we’ve met in Glasgow has been telling us this is the best gig we’ll ever play”, he declared, as soon as the Leeds band arrived onstage. They then proceeded over the following 70 minutes to deliver on that expectation, with an evening that’s among the best the storied old Barrowland has ever seen.That might sound like overzealous hype, but this was a beefed up set that possessed power, passion and playfulness all at once. This current short jaunt for the group is essentially Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Brett Dean’s opera Hamlet will play at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in June: the next stage of an acclaimed progress that began at Glyndebourne in 2017. Now on the last stretch of his three-year stint as composer-in-residence with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the prolific and versatile Australian – formerly a violist with the Berlin Phil – evidently still has warring royal families on his mind. Last night the LPO, conducted by Edward Gardner, premiered Dean’s In spe contra spem (Hope against Hope): a dramatic scena for two sopranos in which lyricist Matthew Jocelyn interweaves Read more ...
Christopher Lambton
One can only admire the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland for its steadfast indifference to the laws of box office gravity. A little known contemporary guitar concerto allied to a relatively unpopular Mahler symphony would be a hard sell even in an Edinburgh Festival context. On a distinctly chilly April evening in Edinburgh, it fell to a small but vocal audience of camp followers to make up for the disappointing rows of empty seats in the admittedly cavernous Usher Hall. The evening had a slightly unusual format. At 80 minutes, Mahler’s Seventh Symphony is long enough to stand alone Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
It is temping to wonder what path the Orielles would have gone down in a world where the coronavirus never occurred. The Halifax trio had just released their second album, Disco Volador when the pandemic struck, and wiped out any hope of touring the record. Instead they reworked material from the record for use scoring a film, and have now returned with last year’s Tableau album as a significantly different beast.That was evident all throughout this set in Glasgow, the final night of their UK tour. When they finally played a track from their first record Silver Dollar Moment, dropping in Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Blake Rose clearly wasn’t leaving anything to chance. The support act bounded onstage draped in a Saltire, and soon brought up his days growing up in Aberdeen before moving to Australia. That Scottish upbringing helped inspire one of his songs, “Sweet Caledonia”, and going by the lively reaction he received from the youthful Glasgow crowd they were glad to take him as their own.Musically, it was a tougher sell, and he came across like the result of a record company executive barking out demands to find another Sam Fender, but poppier and smoother. The melodies were pleasant, but a knockout Read more ...