King Creosote / Emily Barker

Last night’s King Creosote show at the Usher Hall proved to be a unique one – but not for the right reasons as it had to be abandoned after less than an hour.

The first sign of a problem was that Emily Barker’s half hour support set was plagued by an intermittent, crackling noise, even though her set-up was mainly just a guitar and her voice.

Despite the crackling, I enjoyed her set – she was engaging and had good songs which won out over a bit of regret at the crackles.

Half an hour after Emily had finished, the between-sets music over the PA stopped dead on the scheduled start of 8:45. It seemed like KC and band were about to take to the stage but instead there was a couple of minutes of dead air before something else was put on.

There could have been any number of different explanations for a band going on stage late but there was no denying that it was a bad sign that fifteen minutes later, the on-stage sound tech was on his hands and knees looking at kit.

Still, twenty minutes later than planned, a member of the band finally walked on stage to start the set with some electronics. The rest of the band shortly followed before Kenny arrived on stage and launched into the first two songs from last year’s ‘I DES’ album.

As my ears adjusted to the bass heavy sound, the crackle wasn’t particularly prominent but someone from the crew came onstage to discuss things with Kenny between songs. After a bit of chat to the audience, intended to buy the techs some time to find the problem, the eight-piece ensemble played another song, during which the crackle was very definitely apparent.

Taking matters into his own hands, Kenny persuaded Mairead Green on accordion and violinist Hannah Fisher to join him on a tour of the hall’s aisles, completely unamplified. It was a smart thing to do even if any audience response had the effect of drowning out the musicians for anyone other than those sitting right next to wherever the wandering minstrel was.

Returning to the stage, Kenny asked “What would James Yorkston do?” getting the audience to agree that they should play through the problems. He then led the band led into a further couple of tunes but things were no better and there were further hurried consultations onstage with Kenny and the band during the songs. By the end of the fifth song, Kenny was forced to sing his apologies that the show would have to be stopped and that a new date or refunds would be available.

Some acts may have left it at that but Kenny, determined to offer the near sold-out crowd some sort of consolation, said the four keyboards were apparently making the problem worse so they’d play a few songs without them.

Given Emily’s earlier problems this seemed an optimistic prognosis, yet the front four of Kenny, Mairead, Hannah and Emily, supplemented by Ziggy on vocals, miraculously delivered ‘Susie Mullen’ without any distortion, the first song on the night to avoid any glitches.

Unfortunately, any hope that the problem had been fixed was immediately dashed as the following ‘Love Is A Curse’ was badly marred by the distortion.

The PA was therefore abandoned again for the final time for a closing, unamplified ’Not One Bit Ashamed’ this time delivered from the front of the stage.

For all the frustration that he must have been feeling, there’s no doubt that Kenny had handled the situation as well as anyone could have and the band actually left the stage to a standing ovation. That meant that there was a swell of goodwill in a situation that could have turned out far more unpleasantly.

However, it’s undoubtedly hugely embarrassing for the Usher Hall for such a prestigious show to be abandoned so early on and clearly (and justifiably) not everyone was sanguine about the prospect of a rearranged show.

All in all, it was very much an unfortunate experience but one that will live long in the memory for at least some of the right reasons.