Kenny Anderson is a man immersed in music, that’s for sure – umpteen albums behind him as well as the, er, ‘alt.folk’ label Fence to his co-founding credit. But ‘Rock’? Well, that’s what he’d have us believe. KC’s week in rock, it could be a musical give that it takes place in the decidedly un-rock setting of Stirling’s Tollbooth.
Not quite cabaret style, the all-seated show begins bang on time, meaning that itm? misses the first song and the patter which would have formed ‘Monday’. Truth be told – and it may be that many of his gigs nowadays are in arenas – but KC has never been more chatty or candid, and he isn’t usually at a loss for words. Each song is punctuated by an anecdote, which conveniently buys him time to strap on/off his trusty accordion or swap it for a guitar. Acoustic tonight, he starts off with a few solo songs, before his band take the stage.
Kenny’s recently returned ‘home’ to his own Fence label following a brief foray into the corporate world with 679 – a label presumably so dogged by the credit crunch that they couldn’t give KC more than one album to conquer the pop charts. Thus, there’s plenty to talk about even outwith this particular week. So, a track from the HMS Ginafore album is accompanied with the story on how fan Ian Rankine “didn’t get it”. He’s also candid on his former label – ‘Home in a Sentence’ is the “song that got him dropped”, while he plugs another new release – the …Jupiter Eyes album – with ‘On Esther‘s Planets. >This and a small subset of his back catalogue is on sale in the Fence mobile shop (a box of CDs and a pile of cash on a table manned by KC at the side of the stage).
After the interval – yes, its a theatre gig for sure – he continues the week. Although in fine voice, there are a couple of moments where a mere croak merges from that usually-mellifluous throat, which we can only put down to him singing along to Simple Minds (Tuesday) at the SECC. We don’t quite get a cover of ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ but instead it’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ to start and then, requests. It seems that the ‘major’ album Bombshell will be ignored, but no – ‘Leslie’ – an unfortunate misspelling when written, apparently – kicks things off and leads us to Kenny’s theory about why you never meet a Glenrothes native outside the town. And then, that album’s title track; his daughter’s least favourite song thanks to its darkness, were informed. Johnny Lynch, despite sporting only an acoustic, manages to gather further stormclouds over the tune with some masterful use of effects, and is rewarded by a request for a Pictish Trail song, which the band duly perform. Pictish then cheekily offers his show next week at King Tuts as an alternative to the Creosote set in Hartlepool. (Note to band; they hang monkeys there so all members might like to have a quick shave, just in case).
Ever mindful of non-rock ways, there’s no encore, just a quick acknowledgement and we stray further from rock territory of a Francie and Josie tune which, being panto season, prompts a singalong of ‘La-di-da-di-da’ to this bizarre tribute to Scotland’s music-hall heritage. Never mind bailing out failing banks, slap a preservation order on Fence now.
Eh… what exactly is this Glenrothes-related theory? I shant stand for slander! Also, Ian Rankine? Rankin? Sharpen up McHugh! Can I get away with being this cheeky?
You’re fired. Ed.
😉
The reason you never meet a Glenrothes native outside the town is (roughly) that the road system and lack of pavements etc means that as soon as they step out of the place they get run over due to not being used to looking both ways.
Doubtless I was thinking of Alan Rankine, who, er, hasn’t dropped his ‘e’.
Might have know you Fifers woulld stick together!