Sublime...

Playlist
The Blue Nile – Rarities 1984-1996 (CD-R)
Neal Morse – One
Neal Morse – Testimony
The Blue Nile – A Walk Across the Rooftops
The Blue Nile – Hats
The Blue Nile – Peace at Last
The Blue Nile – High
Matthew Locke - The Broken Consort

Met up with the Executive Producer at lunchtime as we were off today to Glasgow (fourth time in two weeks for your correspondent) to see The (very, very mighty indeed) Blue Nile...

We’d booked the bus for 2:30 and arrived unscathed in Glasgow Town around 3:45...

Out of character for us, we took a stroll up Sauchiehall St – it’s pretty run down to be honest, though Anne did find a new clothes shop she’d never seen before, so it wasn’t all bad...

On our way back down, we bumped into my mum’s chum, Moira, whom we visited just last Saturday – what a coincidence...

She was uptown, as is normal for her on a Thursday, having met up with a friend and taken a walk around some of the many interesting sites of the City (as opposed to FOPP, Missing and HMV)...

Moira partakes of guided walks via the University and then does those self-same walks with friends, imparting her newly gained background info...

While we chatted, a duo busked on the corner – they comprised just drums and guitar but their laid back, jazzy improv style was most entertaining...

Moira recommended Café Gondolfi, over beyond Candleriggs, for our pre-gig dinner – an eaterie much used by her daughter, my childhood friend, Lindsay, while she was studying at University and indeed from where Moira and a friend were once ejected for taking too long over post lunch drinks one afternoon...

No doubt we will visit at some point but, today, we wanted to stay close to the Concert Hall, so we chose our favourite local place, Fratelli Sarti on Renfield Street – where we’d last been whilst celebrating Queen of the South’s 4-3 win over Aberdeen back in April...

Post an excellent meal, accompanied by a cheeky carafe of house red, we wandered back into the evening and, while Anne toured the nearby Buchanan Galleries Mall, I took a look round what has, unintentionally, become a new stopping point for me, Zavvi...

I emerged just as the doors to the concert were opening, having purchased two classical discs – Vivaldi’s “Variations on La Folia and Other Sonatas” and, what turned out to be a real find, “The Broken Consort” by Matthew Locke...



Anyway – enough tittle-tattle and on to the gig...

As you might expect from this viewpoint it was brilliant...

It seemed to be the same six man line up as last July in Manchester and it was the usual enjoyable journey through the slim Blue Nile 25 year, four album history – every song was a perfect recreation of the sounds I’ve come to know and love over those years since Count Brodski first introduced me to the band in the early eighties...

Stand outs were the slower, paired down tracks such as “Family Life”, “From a Midnight Train” and “Easter Parade” along with “Over the Hillside” and “I Would Never” and the, now regular, encore of "Strangers in the Night"...

A few songs I love remained unplayed – “Let’s Go Out Tonight”, “Because of Toledo”, “High” but, having heard around two hours of superb music, I’m not complaining...



As for my fellow audience members well, as usual, I am complaining...

Drunk girl at the end of our row who whooped and hollered and sang badly out of tune through many of the songs (including the slow ones) was particularly annoying...

Had she choked and died on her own vomit in the Ladies (to where she disappeared half way through the gig, staggering and banging into the walls as she went) I wouldn’t have cared a jot (at the time, obviously - in reality I wouldn't want anyone to die just for annoying me at a concert....probably)...

Best moment of the night was seeing her attempted re-entry to the auditorium thwarted by three or four burly security men...

Other annoyances – people who get up to go to the toilet mid-song, disturbing entire rows of the audience, not to mention those sitting behind...

The same people who then show no respect for the musicians or their fellow audience members by casually making their way back to their seats mid-song, causing the same annoyance and disturbance...

What’s wrong with waiting till the end of a song before leaving or retaking your seat?

Or even not drinking so much that you have to visit the facilities mid-gig in the first place...

Hell is indeed other people...

An uneventful journey home was soundtracked for me by the Blue Nile discography and we returned to Meg the Black Cat and Crispycat Towers around 12:45 am...

Lovely...

Highlight of the Day : The Blue Nile