Plus ca change...

Playlist

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Eratzreal Acoustic Demo

Grand Funk Railroad - Live 1971

Simple Minds - Best of 1979-1982 (CD-R)

Went for a stroll uptown at lunchtime today and was going to go into the Ron Mueck exhibition at the Art Gallery on the Mound but left myself with too little time to obtain full value for money for the proposed entry fee, so I'll leave it for another day...

Also, funnily enough, found myself in FOPP but once again was able to restrain any urges to buy. I'm still waiting on the arrival of 6 CDs via e-bay....

Recently in my sights has been the new box set by American improv band Tortoise, by whom I have nothing at present and I figure this would make a good introduction...

In the evening, met up with Anne at the office, here chatting to chum KT...

...before heading to Castle St, where we enjoyed a meal at The Golden Dragon. This used to be called The Dragon's Castle and I think we once ate here around 25 years ago...

Other than the name, it's not really changed. The food was good, but pricey...

But we were saving £50 tonight - ok probably £50 that we wouldn't have spent - but, due to my connection with their manager, we had secured four places on the guest list for tonight's T On The Fringe gig at the Ross Bandstand in Princes St Gardens for Simple Minds - right below the castle...

Support came from the rather poor plodding bad black music oriented retro Glasgow band El Presidente who included the song from the recent Daily Record TV adverts in their set...

The crowd enjoyed them though - Hmm, I'm just so not up-to-date, man - perhaps in a sweaty nite club somewhere I'd have enjoyed them more - but an outdoor gig whilst it's still light is a difficult one to pull off....

By the time Simple Minds came on, we'd been standing for over two hours and while it had darkened quit a bit, it was also starting to become distinctly chilly. We were there with chums Tracey...

...and Kris...

  Kris is young enough to be our son and had never heard any Simple Minds until tonight. Tracey was a fan of their "hits"...

We, however, are fans mainly of their early period before they really made it big - the experimental electronic period - "Reel to Real Cacophony", "Empires and Dance", "Sons and Fascination" and "Sister Feelings Call"...

In those days, they were fresh and interesting - before something just happened to their music and it went all pomp and circumstance on us and garnered a worldwide stadium audience...

Notwithstanding this, we saw them at the Usher Hall a few years ago - guest list again (hey we did used to pay to see them in the early 80's - and they also used to rehearse in the same disused cinema as my band Capital Models did) - and at that gig I'd really enjoyed the energy and the recognition of so many hit songs which seemed to come alive again in that particular live setting...

Tonight though, the sound wasn't that great and the set list was somehow flat until towards the end. They never strayed further back than their 1982 breakthrough album "New Gold Dream"....

You might think from the above that I didn't enjoy the gig but I did really...

And there were a few sights to see in the crowd...

After we said our farewells to Tracey and Kris, we walked along Princes St, caught a bus to where Anne had parked the car, drove home, had some coffee to warm us up and watched "Scotsport SPL" until we'd seen Hearts v Inverness....

Hearts are joint top of their league while, after yesterday's 3-0 defeat at home to Gretna, the mighty Queeens have resumed their rightful position at the foot of theirs..

Plus ca change....

Highlight of the Day : The Minds, man...