The Valves / Le Bomb

Glasgow McChuills

Saturday 3rd June

A free gig, apart from an Edinburgh hardcore it was hard to tell who had actually thrown in their lot with this one, maybe 20 or 30 people, despite quite a few posters around town, notably in LoveMusicGlasgow.

A good stage setup, with decent soundmix, Le Bomb have only been playing for a few years but several members are of a certain vintage (old guys, sorry!). They were very tight though and all of them excelled as good musicians, some nifty bass, dualling guitars and straight down the line drums. The material was at times a bit generic, Clash vs Pistols, some good “jilted by a girl” lyrics, and some good flourishes. They clearly enjoy playing together and that really is enough. A bit of nostalgia but that ain’t what it used to be… It felt good and there was applause, BM congratulated them all afterwards, it was that sorta gig… and respect due, will look out for them again.

The Valves first appeared somewhere in Reekie around 1977-8 and pioneered the Edinburgh reaction to Grundy and all that (ask your great-gran…). And can BM just say it has been interesting tracking the history of this lot, the 2011 Downfall parody (it was all the rage back then, although a bit dodgy) “Hitler is told The Valves are playing in Edinburgh again” is really lol stuff, respect due to whichever wag put that one up on YouTube… not sure how The Mighty Valves, the Cheetahs etc all fit into this, other incarnations over the years apparently, or prove BM wrong, happy to be corrected!

So anyway this band had a few singles, then went their ways, then someting stirred a couple of years ago. There is an issue however, the original singer now lives across the North Wall, aka Brexitland, or Belgium in his case, and he may never get back in… So vocal duties on this short tour have been assumed by, oh crumbs, BM does not know his name, Rob maybe, anyway he was totally up for it and held the notes, and had the attitude…

There were 15 songs on the setlist, notably ‘Linda Vindaloo’ made an early appearance, with ‘London Town’ unfortunately played around the time when horrific events were unfolding in that very town, but we were not to know…

The sound is like The Ramones meets The Damned, and they are a five piece, singer, guitar, keyboard, bass, drums. Some of it is generic punk but there are some interesting nuances (WTF is BM doing in 2017 talking about nuances in punk tunes from Edinburgh from 40 years ago but bear with…). Other bands of time got a bit further than Portobello, The Skids notably…and maybe this lot just didn’t have the luck, but God they sound pretty good tonight.

Classic tracks ‘For Adolfs Only’ rung out and the pervasive late 70s themes of music ontheradio plus radioactivity ruled. There was a blast from the past when it was announced that ‘Radioactive’ was a protest song about the commissioning of Torness nuclear power station. Well, sorry guys, it not only happened, has had 30 years of powering Scotland and is now being DE-commissioned, so slightly after the event, but respect due anyway.

So the last song is Scottish punk classic, ‘Ain’t No Surf In Portobello’ – amazing, just don’t ever stop… these guys, especially the drummer but actually all of them, had the time of their lives, so keep on doing it…we love you! Peace!

Music is Torture

Tron Theatre (Tromolo Productions)

Thursday May 18th

Tromolo Productions’ show ‘Music is Torture’ previewed at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, last Thursday and it was an interesting, thoughtful 70 or so minutes more… “Music is Torture”