Glasgow King Tut's
Thursday, 12 March
Oh Finley, Where Art Thou?
That was the impression raised as the Edinburgh-born artist took to the stage with his ramshackle new backing band.
Confidence had been checked in at the door, and in the eleven years Finley Quaye has spent in relative obscurity since bursting onto the scene appeared to be rushing to the forefront of his mind as the gig commenced.
If Quaye made a gesture towards the audience in the entire hour-long set, then it would have been missed by most, because the former BRIT award winner in 1998 hid behind a set of dark shades in one of Glasgows’ shadiest venues. An excuse, one feels, to never embrace the Zeitgeist that made his Britpop-era persona so palatable.
So to escape his ‘Maverick A Strike’ album and the spectres that have followed him, those that ultimately made and destroyed his career in equal measure, he parades new, meandering tracks for the opening period. In truth, they never come close to raising a root of optimism from what is a generous crowd.
His trademark, reggae-driven rhythms are elongated across a number of songs that become frankly disinteresting, and half-way through the clearly pressurised Quaye appears to notice the malcontent, leaving his band to jam for a short period on their own while he attempted to gather his thoughts.
He returns, not refreshed, but with a new outlook, and decides to rally through his more commercial elements of his repertoire, post-haste, in order to end his apparent nightmare. Rarely does it occur, but those in attendance tonight witnessed a musical performer systematically disconnect himself with his vocation in the space of one short set of music.
It was horrible to be in the room as he whizzed through ‘Sunday Shining’, which remains a seminal record of its time, a beat ahead of his band, while not even offering due courtesy as to offer a name for any of his new, underwhelming offerings that surrounded it.
However, whilst the stage presence is sorely lacking, the same cannot be said of his voice; despite holding the microphone awkwardly away from his face (so much so that he demanded a sound increase, diva-like, early on) his unconventional, unique twang still sounds fantastic but wasn’t given the airing it deserved.
As the crowd dwindled so did his sense of being, and he looked so disinterested it became a countdown to end the despair for all parties involved.
Finley Quaye was indeed a maverick of his day, but tonight he did nothing to justify his exorbitant £17 entry fee that, in all honestly, should have been refunded after a gig as functionless and banal as this.
In the closing stages, Quaye disappeared again, and judging by his body language, it could be one of the last times he ever appears on stage. We will see.
