Ghostdancing

Roaming Roots Revue 2024

Barrowland Ballroon, Glasgow, 20.1.24

The Barrowland Ballroom is full of ghosts. The next time you’re there, let your mind wander mid-set, look vaguely into the middle distance and they’ll come to you; a transparent, milky-white film of Shane ‘n Kirsty perhaps, slow waltzing as Eddi Reader, profiled in jawline and gladrags, reaches for the highest notes in an atmospheric take on King Creosote’s Something To Believe In. A static flicker of Joe Strummer maybe, his left leg a-pumping to the furious beat of The Pogues harum scarum demolition of London Calling at that same show, exactly in the spot where Hamish Hawk is now leading the Lonesome Fire plus 50-piece orchestra through a celebratory version of his own Google-friendly The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973. You’ll possibly spot Joey Ramone, flickering in from the past, legs akimbo and hanging off the microphone stand like a hairy anglepoise lamp while Emma Pollock places herself in the middle of a swirling orchestral storm, her fantastic take on Gerry Rafferty’s Night Owl wowing the capacity crowd. There’s Bob Dylan on his keyboard, sweat dripping from the brim of his hat…here’s a skirling dervish Morrissey whipping his microphone lead with all the dexterity of a Billy Smart ringmaster…Michael Stipe…Lux Interior…Terry Hall stage centre and static as the other Specials flail and skank as if there’s no tomorrow…PJ Harvey in pink feather boa and not much else… The Barrowland Ballroom is full of ghosts, imprinted on the memory and ready for recall at any opportunity.

But what exactly is going on? The Roaming Roots Revue is now a staple of the Celtic Connections festival. The brainchild of Roddy Hart, he, along with his 5-piece backing band The Lonesome Fire, has assembled a 50-piece orchestra and invited along a host of his pals to celebrate (this year) the great Scottish songbook. The premise is that each act plays one of their own songs and then a cover of an accepted modern Scottish classic pop hit, all accompanied by Roddy and his band and the orchestra. And that’s what we get.

A tambourine-totin’ Tracyanne Campbell does a stomping French Navy. Eddi Reader pops back on and does an intense version of In A Big Country and there’s no one, artist or audience, who isn’t grinning widely. Admiral Fallow do a beautiful Dead Against Smoking – it sounds fantastic with live strings and brass and wood and what have ye – “you’re like gas-o-line, you’re like the wil-low tree” – before struggling a wee bit with Party Fears Two. It’s a brave person who attempts to sing like Billy Mackenzie and while they may be, eh, Admirable Fellows for having a go, they’re no substitute for the real thing.

As it all plays out, something hits me. It’s not just the groups that are ghosts. It turns out their songs are too. I can ‘see’ Stuart Adamson in his wee pilot boots and high waisted trousers cranking out those bagpipe riffs on his Yamaha electric, right there where Eddi is singing about lovers voices firing the mountainsides right now. And look! We’re now back in an encore in 1988 and here’s a floppy haired Roddy Frame being worn expertly by his oversized Gibson ES 295. He’s handsome and cool and leading a mass, communal Somewhere In My Heart, front and centre and total focal point, just where the young upstart Brownbear is currently doing that self same thing 36 years later. And talking of mass communion (and redemption), Admiral Fallow do their damndest to bring the famous old house down with their reverential – and utterly fantastic – Scottish gospel approach (“In the key of G major“) to Sunshine On Leith. Show me someone who says they don’t like that song and I’ll show you a liar. It has, as you well know, been known to make even a Hearts fan with a glass eye shed a tear. A modern Scottish classic if ever there was one.

The other highlights? It’s hard to see past a staring, beady eyed Hamish Hawk and his nervous, twitchy Ian Curtisisms, punching the steam-powered mechanical beat to Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out like it was he who wrote it, before he bravely and unexpectedly launches with gusto into Frightened Rabbit’s dirty and sweary Keep Yourself Warm. He means it, man. The guy has star quality written all over him and you really must check him out. The reliable Roddy and Rod from Idlewild do a great You Held The World In Your Arms, all crashing chords and sweeping orchestral flourishes. In the absence of yr actual Paul Buchanan, Roddy Hart and his band do a sterling and faithful reworking of Tinseltown In The Rain, all scratch guitars and moody ambience. Justin Currie dispenses his shonky, temperamental acoustic for a brooding and menacing dive into Del Amitri’s uncharted (quite literally) back catalogue, one leg up on the monitor, dripping his luscious, conditioned fringe over his crowd at the front. The last time I saw Justin in here, he did that whole Spinal Tap, foot on the monitor thing during one of the band’s more boogie-orientated numbers and I couldn’t help but notice the extent to which his dark jeans had frayed to a threadbare grey/white at the crotch. I wasn’t close enough to see if he’d since invested in a new pair of Levis, but I’m hoping, for the sake of those poor front row souls, he has.

But it’s Frank and John from the Trashcans that I’m looking forward to the most and they don’t disappoint. Taking liberties with the notion of what constitutes a ‘modern’ Scottish classic, they and the assembled masses fall into the near 50-year old Year Of The Cat, Al Stewart’s long and winding tale of exotic, on the road romance. It’s a very Trashcans song, you realise, its Patti Smith by way of Harvest For The World opening giving way to a lovely unravelling chord progression, all major to minor to major 7ths and back again. A mid paced groover, it rolls along for 8 exquisite minutes and more, gentle on the mind and just as gentle on the feet. The Trashcans’ own Weightlifting gets the full orchestral treatment, slow and stately from its Elis & Tom bossanova opening to the heavenly horns in the swirling coda. I’ve heard Weightlifting done by the Trashcans countless times, more recently stripped back to its acoustic core by a solo John on more than one occasion, and now with the muscle of the orchestra behind it. It doesn’t matter how it’s presented. Serve the song and it’ll serve you well.

To send us home, we get a full-on Live Aid style encore of Whole Of The Moon, half a dozen or so of tonight’s big hitters taking turns to sing the lines, shoulder to shoulder with some of the finest talent our country has produced, a Last Waltz for the 50-somethings of the west of Scotland. An incredible show.