It has been four years since Colonel Mustard & the Dijon 5 last performed at Celtic Connections. Last time they were at the start.
This time they’re on the closing night.
To give a bit of background for the uninitiated I’ll start by asking “Where have you been?” Colonel Mustard earned their way to being one of the best festival and good time party bands in Scotland by constant gigging – often brought in to give an event energy and bring some colour to proceedings.
As long as you’re ok with that colour being yellow. Their music is a mixture of ska, indie, pop, hip hop, acid house and those public information films that used to scare you on children’s tv. All with sharp witty lyrics.
The brochure lists them as ‘Funk’ which I’ve never thought of before but kind of make sense.
This is the 10th anniversary of their debut album ‘Party To Make Music To Party To Make Music To Party To 1’ and they performed it in full.
That album really caught a moment in time. It had so many contributions from other bands like the Girobabies. It tapped into the Scottish hip hop scene as well as shows like Spangled Cabaret.
The videos they made at that time are a great document of some of the less mainstream things that were going on at the same time Glasgow was blowing up their high flats and changing the landscape.
Some of those visuals were reused and projected on the backdrop at this gig along with some new visuals and video. It really added to the spectacle.
I don’t know if this album spawned the Yellow Movement or if the Yellow Movement created the conditions for the album, but either way the Yellow Movement still doesn’t exist in mainstream consciousness.
At the most basic level it is simply friends supporting other friends. And two of those friends are the Laurettes.
Lauren and Lynette were in the crowd at the Fruitmarket at the last Dijon 5 Celtic gig and now they’re on the stage supporting. Their music is punky indie with a Celtic edge, and they were a lot of fun to watch. Great songs about mad nights out with the band, ‘Techno Vikings’ and their new single ‘Mainstage’ was released just hours before the gig.
Clearly they’ve learned from being in the crowd as there’s plenty of audience participation, with guests on stage and some actions to go with certain songs. They’re well worth checking out.
Colonel Mustard & the Dijon 5 arrived after a quick stage turnaround.
Highlight for me was that they brought back the original singers Becky and Nicolette.
Both of their voices are so crucial to certain songs on that record that to me they really aren’t the same without them.
Also playing the album in full, but not in order, means that we got to hear some rarely played songs like ‘Capturado’. Second song in and the crowd are divided into two with a gap between them for a ‘Dance Off’.
‘International Sex Hero’ is always their first song these days so that meant album opener ‘How Many Manys Are Too Many Manys’ swapped places, and ‘These Are Not The Drugs You Are Looking For’ was held back till the end.
Actor Gavin Mitchell appeared for the health and safety nightmare that is ‘Cross The Road’ while there was even an onstage proposal – she said “Aye alright”.
And hilariously they actually sort of broke the next song ‘Ted Danson’ in the process.
Colonel Mustard gigs are usually fun upbeat things. And this was no exception. Even the new song called ‘Good Grief’ about the people we’ve lost in the last while didn’t take us out of that.
It was much the same as the rest of the night.
A celebration of Peace, Love and Mustard.