The Next Big Thing

I’d never been at a show in the revamped Caley cinema, now rechristened The Picturehouse. Had a wee peek in when Mr Graboff was here last December but wasn’t at a show in there since probably The Scientists/Sisters of Mercy – whenever the heck that was?

Word on the pavie has been that the sound in there was a bit guff but not last night. Nope. Got down there a little after 7 and made a pitstop at Filmhouse because the doors weren’t open. My understanding was that St. Deluxe would be on at 7.25pm. Nope. Turns out it was more like 10 minutes early so we only caught three of their agreeable squalls. If they can get the kids to connect then they could do pretty good.

Was never a fan of The Vaselines until the “Dum Dum” album came out and they split shortly afterwards. So I never saw them before but on last night’s showing, it’s been my loss. Augmented by a 1990, the great Stevie Jackson and a bass player I recognised but couldn’t place – they blitzed through a highly entertaining selection. Frances and Eugene trading banter with each other and the crowd. I’d almost go so far as to describe it as charming. And nowhere near as puerile as I figured it might be. My good mate Peter Tjolsen will be smiling and thinking “told you so” right about now. In short, these kids did great. Guess I was wrong. Again.

And Mudhoney – 21 years + since that Eurodebut in Berlin and I haven’t been in an Edinburgh audience that “up for it” in a very long time. There was a genuine crackle of electricity and anticipation, the kind of which is generally lacking in this commoditised world. And by this time the band has quite the catalogue to draw from and they do. The thing about these guys is that it all seems so effortless. To my mind, they are to The Stooges what the Hellacopters were to the MC5. They made it directly possible for Iggy to hotwire his old compadres and most importantly make new generations care. It’s when you see a display like this that you figure there might just be hope for this hoary old rock’n’roll after all.

It’s a pleasure to see a band that has kept doing their thing on THEIR terms. There were a lot of youngsters there who quite patently hadn’t seen the band before and were going ballistic. There’s something to there being some time between shows. This isn’t a cash hoover that comes around every 6 months after all. They were good at ATP a couple or 3 years ago but last night was a cut above.

As memory circuits crash and burn, I think that a lot of people will recall last night’s show as a highpoint of their time here on Planet Earth. It never flagged for a second.

My thanks to Mark and Kelly. Also to “Orange Slice (Leafy Green). Grand job fellas.