Ooft!
As Scotland sweltered in the tropical heatwave that seemed to last pretty much all of June, and as thousands flocked to see what sounded like a bit of a dull Arctic Monkeys performance at Bellahouston Park (Alex Turner’s voice held so no need to deploy the Partick Monkeys as subs on the night) there really was only one place to be!
The Hug and Pint actually has about the best aircon system of any venue in Glasgow, just as well because aside from the searing heat, the band and support were playing two gigs today, fitting in a “matinee” starting around 4pm to cater for the presumably unexpected demand.
Scouser-in-exile Jules Reid was up first, playing to a somewhat less than full venue (BM thinks some of the crowd had tickets for both shows and may have taken the opportunity to get some food…). The acoustic songs were melodic and thoughtful, subjects ranging from Oxford graveyards, partners’ ex partners’ sports cars (“in my drive…”) and growing older, he displayed decent playing skills, good songwriting and mordant humour.
Next up was local lad Paul Kelly, who did a one-man The Martial Arts show, apologising for the use of an iPad to provide the backing track while he sang and traded guitar riffs with the bot. Attired as he usually is in a sparkly jacket he powered through four songs including ‘Not Coming Down’, ‘Bethany’ and ‘Working On My Eyes’. As usual the songs were melodic, with touches of The Beatles and Britpop, some great guitar work, great singing and interesting lyrics. He appeared to have thoroughly enjoyed his UK-wide jaunt with the Boos and will be back on duty with Carla J Easton later in the summer – he also went down pretty well with quite a tough crowd, the hardcore Boos fans!
BM doubted very much if this band would gig again (think a tent at TITP was the one and only gig witness first time around, although maybe a gig at King Tut’s, not sure…) after their irrevocable split with guitarist and songwriter Martin Carr (BM has seen a couple of his subsequent gigs and reviewed his stuff, very good indeed btw). However the world is a funny place and this “Giant Steps and more…” tour has gone down very well indeed – the original lineup of Sice, Tim and Rob augmented by young Louis Smith taking Martin’s place on guitar, plus trumpet player Nick Etwell on many of the tracks played tonight.
From the start it was obvious that this lineup were in rude form, presumably getting tighter with each gig (and this was the last of the tour) but still with enough in the tank not to flag. They were however up against the clock, already a bit behind the original stage time. BM is not sure in what order things were supposed to go but at this gig they started with ‘Giant Steps’ (pretty much the whole album, the only change being substituting ‘Run My Way Runway’ with B-side of the time ‘Buffalo Bill’). Sice had that old mischievous twinkle in this eye as he quipped that “you wouldn’t wanna hear that one” regarding ‘RMWR’, then launched into the next track. And so it went, the whole thing sounding great, with the reggae-tinged ‘Upon 9th And Fairchild’ being the highlight for BM and the whole thing sounding not one bit dated, in fact more like a precursor of a certain other band further up the Mersey who must surely have been taking notes (they were with the same record company…) back in 1993. Sice’s voice held up brilliantly for the second lengthy set of the day, Tim’s bass sounded better than ever and Rob was quite extraordinary on the drums. Louis and Nick both did great shifts as well, going about their business but understanding that this was a bit of a trip for the three original Boos and the fans.
The second “Greatest Hits” set was started shortly after, with Sice asking the crowd “What should we play?” to a very varied response. In the end time got the better of them (and BM’s memory was starting to fail so the order might be a bit sketchy…) but they definitely played ‘Kingsize’, ‘Find The Answer Within’, and ended with feedback-drenched oldie ‘Lazy Day’. Sice did refer to “that song” but they didn’t play it, although it had been deployed on other dates, along with a couple of the relatively new songs (there have been two albums from the trio in recent years).
A great gig from a band who possibly deserve better than being a footnote in Chris Evans’ career, but we can’t always choose how we are remembered – on Sunday, the Boos reminded us again who they really were.