Selecting the right support act can be a tricky business, but for Lloyd Cole, the support pretty much picks themselves.
Recently-regrouped contemporaries The Jazzateers play songs from their re-released debut, Rough 46 – originally from 1981, a time when the music press thought Glasgow jangled.
Tonight there’s a recreation of that. The band slot in nicely even if they didn’t come up with the pop hits that the more chart-friendly Cole and chums provided.
Every song is introduced with a little anecdote like “this was NME’s record of the week in 1981.”
These songs don’t sound their age, the DNA that they are built from still exists right now.
Maybe that’s the legacy of the Sound of Young Scotland, or maybe that’s the Creeping Bent connection?
You can decide.
There can’t be many bands that have an intro song that actually is about them; such is Cole’s influence on the bands that followed.
As the first few bars of Camera Obscura’s ‘Hey Lloyd’ ring out around the ABC, the Leopards take to the stage before being introduced to the crowd by Billy Sloan.
“30 years and the same old torn face, maybe we’ll get a smile tonight”
Cole is joined by, not the Commotions, but the Leopards – again, an apt backing with Mick Slaven, Douglas MacIntyre, Campbell Owens, Jim Gash and Blair Cowan – local scene veterans who recorded for Creeping Bent in that era following Cole’s initial success.
But Cole takes centre stage – sharing nostalgic chat on Glasgow despte being from England and now living in the USA.
Delving into a setlist that spanned those three decades, the band start with Rattlesnakes from 1984, taking in Easy Pieces, Broken Record, newest release Standards including ‘Women’s Studies’ and ‘Opposites Day’and then returning, inevitably, and to great acclaim, to the debut.
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