Tag: hydro

Live!

The Cavern-ous Club

Craig McAllister

There’s a dilemma whenever a superstar rolls into town. Do you suck up the high ticket price in order to be in the same room as one of the greats or do you steadfastly refuse to pay over the odds to be sat in a seat so far from the stage that they share different post codes? Let’s face it. Paul McCartney is never going to play King Tuts. And bar the highly unlikely event of there being a BBC-endorsed ticket-ballot for a gig at the Barrowlands, the only way you’ll get (cough) up close and personal with McCartney is at a venue like the vast Hydro, the 3rd busiest concert venue on the planet. So, earlier in the year when the McCartney show was announced, I grouched and grumbled about the venue and the ticket prices…..then grouched and grumbled when I was placed on a waiting list to get on the pre-sale list and grouched and grumbled some more when I received an email to tell me due to ‘unexpected demand’ I’d been unlucky in securing tickets. In other words, it was sold out and I wasn’t going.

Thanks then to the unexpected bonus of a pal being invited to a family wedding the same night. His tickets were snapped up quicker than you can say “Fab!“, even if his seats were in the actual back row of the highest tier in the largest indoor venue in the land. The High-dro, as I nicknamed it for the night. We were so high up, the fake snow that fell on the audience during the seasonal Wonderful Christmastime fell from below us. Really! I’m sure I caught site of McCartney’s private helicopter at one point, hovering underneath us as the last loving notes of The End faded off and out into the ether.

Had it been an all-standing affair on the ground floor, it might’ve been very different. I’d hatched a plan to blag my way into the standing area by fair means or foul, a ‘plan’ that involved waiting until the ticket checker(s) on the door of the ground floor were distracted before dashing in and vanishing amongst the crowd. In the event, we were able to saunter through to the ground floor area unhindered (and man, once clear inside did we swagger with gallus abandon), only to be met with the surprising site of the whole area covered in seats. There was no standing area at all, not even a golden circle-type affair at the very front. A hike to the third floor it was.

Photo copyright of Stuart Westwood*, used by permission.

Not to matter. As Beatle Paul in his Beatle boots stomps his way through a rattlin’ and rollin’ A Hard Day’s Night, he doesn’t seem that far away. With his ‘tween song patter; all Beatles memories and moist-eyed tributes to his former bandmates, and video projections; a mix of goofy Beatles moments, swirling psychedelics and the occasional Rock Band graphic, he has the uncanny knack of making you feel he’s right there in front of you. Well, he is, but not actually right there. He’s down there. Waaaaay down there. We’re in the Cavern(ous) Club and he’s more Small McCartney than Paul McCartney, but man!, he’s on such great form that it hardly matters.

“I know you’re here for the Beatles’ numbers,” he says mid set. “…as the venue goes all twinkly with yer mobile phones. When we play our new stuff…..” he pauses for comic effect, “Black hole!”

McCartney indeed knows exactly what his audience is here for and for 3 hours, he unwraps a 39-song set that’s heavy on the hits from all eras of his career. His band is basically a beat band; two guitars, keys and drums, with occassional augmentation from a brass section, and they’ve got those Beatles harmonies and Beatles riffs down to a tee. They share mics, Beatles-fashion on Can’t Buy Me Love. They trade bluesy licks and John and Paul call-and-response vocals on a fantastic I’ve Got A Feeling. They huddle around a small drum kit for a mid-set run through of Love Me Do, sounding as fresh as the besuited moptops did on the day they recorded it. There’s a surprising, excellent In Spite Of All The Danger, the track demoed by The Quarrymen that ignited the Lennon/McCartney partnership. And there’s tons more; mid-period Beatles is represented by a sprightly Got To Get You Into My Life and a faithful Eleanor Rigby. Then there’s Blackbird…..We Can Work It Out….Lady Madonna…..Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite…..Back In The USSR…..Birthday……a majestic Something, started on one of George’s old ukeleles and finished in arena-friendly soft rock fashion…….an incredible selection of songs, all played exactly as you’d expect them to sound. McCartney’s voice may be a little shot here and there (and gone completely on the odd high note) but his band (and audience) more than cover with warm harmonies and killer musicianship.

McCartney in Glasgow. Photographer in Ayrshire.

Arguably, the Wings material is even stronger. The band The Beatles coulda been indeed. Longer, drawn out and more suited to arena rock than those early days Beatles’ numbers, they sizzle. Literally in the case of Live And Let Die whose indoor fireworks caused great excitement. The slow-creeping firework smoke finally found us midway through Hey Jude‘s na-na-na-nana-na-nas, a welcome smokescreen for the sudden tears that had caught me off-guard midway through a rollicking Band On The Run and hadn’t quite abated. Who knew ol’ 76 year old Paul, the groovy grandad in tight-fitting bespoke denim jacket with double thumbs aloft after every song could have such an effect?!? The effect continues through the spectacular ending. Following a rockin’ Sgt Pepper’s Reprise and a rollin’ Helter Skelter, McCartney returns to the piano for a heartstring-pulling Golden Slumbers. The Abbey Road medley follows, McCartney pulling on his Les Paul for a rocktastic triple guitar salvo in The End. It’s the perfect finish to a perfect show.

McCartney in Glasgow. Photographer still in Ayrshire.

Given his age and given the fact that entire bands’ careers have come and gone since the last time he played Glasgow, it’d be a brave person who’d suggest they’ll see another Paul McCartney show in Scotland any time soon. It was a thrill to be present last night. Haste ye back, Paul.

Paul’s back!

* Unlike me, Stuart Westwood takes some of the best gig photos you’ll ever see. He was permitted to snap during just the first two songs last night then had to leave to get his shots to the agency who syndicates them around the world. That’s dedication for ye. He has been nominated for a Gold Award by the Society of Photographers in their Photos of the Year category. Look out for his name in the credits whenever a great gig shot grabs your attention.

Live!

Paul Right Now, Baby It’s-a Paul Right Now

Craig McAllister

I can vividly remember sitting in a physics class in 2nd year of school. Mr Hill was explaining how it was possible for a radio audience listening in Paris to hear the first notes of a song in the Albert Hall, London, marginally before the audience in the back row of the venue. Something to do with sound waves and frequencies and the speed of sound in a vacuum, he explained. Actually, I’m just making this part up. I have no idea how it works, which maybe explains why I never elected to take physics beyond the basic foundation level. It’s mind-blowing and all that, but really, who gives a shit?

Well, maybe some of last night’s audience in Glasgow’s Hydro. Officially the 3rd busiest venue in the world (behind London’s O2 and New York’s Madison Square Garden) it’s a beast of a venue. Filled to capacity most nights of the week, it’s hosted all the big acts since opening a couple of years ago; Prince, U2, Taylor Swift, all the hot tickets come to Glasgow’s Hydro where, for the majority of the audience they appear like Lego versions of the real thing, far off in the distance, or, plooks ‘n all, on two massive video screens suspended either side of the stage.


Some of the seats in the Hydro are in a different postcode to the stage. Others may well be in a different time zone, such is their distance from the action. Any old mod tuning in from Paris last night may well have heard the first bars of Long Hot Summer (yes!) before those poor folk head to toe in Pretty Green way up there at the back. Which means those Parisians would’ve had the first inkling that Paul Weller last night was on fire, raging with emotion, attacking his guitar like the angry young man he once was and still defiantly kicking against the pricks.

CLANG! (That’s the sound of a name about to be dropped….)

Johnny Marr told me recently that he’d never deny his audience the chance to hear the choicest of cuts from his stellar Smiths’ catalogue. Why would you, he said, when he enjoyed playing them and the audience wanted to hear them. Yes, he’s proud of his most recent work, but he’s equally proud of the songs that got him to where he is today. Weller, it’s pleasing to note, has done likewise.


A lengthy and epic career-spanning 28 song set-list was played out to his usual audience; aulder and balder with a touch more spread around their middle-aged waists but still bellowing and punching the air in celebration like it was ’78 or ’82. Or even ’95. Jam songs (for such a long time the missing link in his set) followed Style Council songs (for such a long time the missing link etc etc) which followed early solo classics which were followed by tracks from his current patchy but it-makes-sense-in-the-live-arena Saturn’s Pattern LP. In fact, almost every facet of Weller’s career was represented tonight. I think the only phase not acknowledged was his Wild Wood LP, which is really saying something, bop-bop-shoobeedoo-wop. You could sit right now and write a brilliant 28 song set of the tracks he didn’t play, but that would be churlish. Weller’s set tonight was carefully thought-out and paced. I’d even go as far as saying that this was the best I’d ever seen him.


Kicking things off in an understated fashion with the snappy one-two of I’m Where I Should Be and Long Time from the latest album, he was quick to dip into the depths of his stupendous back catalogue. The Jam’s Man In The Corner Shop was followed by Ghosts from the same era. The wham-bam bossanova of The Style Council’s Have You Ever Had It Blue came immediately after My Ever Changing Moods, Weller’s foil Steve Cradock doing his best Curtis Mayfield impression on the wah-wah.

The sideman was on fine form tonight, let loose on expanded versions of Up In Suze’s Room and Porcelain Gods. Into Tomorrow was recast as a dubby, spacey sprawling epic, as expansive as the waistline on some of those old mods’ sharply-creased trousers. Elsewhere, we had a slightly-too-slow take on Start!, a sublime Above The Clouds which sounded like a long-lost cut from Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On LP, a spiky ‘n snarling Peacock Suit, a rare outing for lost single Starlite, a fantastic wigged-out version of The Jam’s In The Crowd and ooh, more than a handful of other crackers. It all finished off in the 2nd encore with a celebratory run through of Town Called Malice, Weller breaking into a smile as he bashed his tambourine into the microphone. He’s fast-becoming the English Neil Young; both have 3 distinct phases of their career, both can by awkward and bloody-minded, both are happy to give you epic sets filled with jam-heavy breaks (no pun intended) and they can both effortlessly switch from rocker to ballad to piano to electric guitar and back again. He’s alright, is our Paul.

via @BazzaMills on Twitter

The hardest-working man in the Hydro was undoubtedly Weller’s sound man. Those recent albums have been dipped in atmospherics and electro whooshes and the soundman sprinkled his magic dust over every track tonight, Weller’s voice echoing off and out into the ether, drums ricocheting around the room. This wasn’t just a bog-standard plug in and play gig, it was an all-encompassing, multi-sensory event. Sound and vision, to steal a phrase.

When Weller next returns to Glasgow, I’ll be surprised if it’s to the Hydro. He enjoys Glasgow, it’s always a fixture on his tour, but his gigs here have followed a pattern over the past decade or so. A gig at the Barrowlands was followed by an up-scaling to the Armadillo. He returned afterwards to the scuzzy setting of the Barrowlands. Next time round, he popped up in the rarely used for gigs Braehead Arena, before coming back once again to the Barrowlands and its familiar sprung dancefloor. He’s at his best in the smaller venue, where he can make real contact with the audience and create a true communion. I doubt if many artists can honestly say that about the Hydro, regardless of how popular a venue it has quietly become. “Nice gaff!” remarked Steve Cradock at one point. Yes, but it’s just that wee bit big, isn’t it?