Blue Rose Code
Falkirk Town Hall
Russell Leadbetter
****
IT’S a sign of the increasingly high profile of Edinburgh’s Blue Rose Code - Ross Wilson to his friends and family - that his most recent studio album, last October’s The Water of Leith, can attract guest vocalists of the calibre of Julie Fowlis and Beth Nielsen Chapman, with sleeve notes written by none other than Ian Rankin. Rankin gets it spot-on when he describes an album filled with emotion, yearning and exploration of Scotland. All of these qualities were on display when Wilson took to the stage on a rainy night in Falkirk.
He’s a captivating performer, live. He fairly commands the stage but plainly doesn’t like too much artifice - at one early point, he asked the stage technicians to cut back on the dry ice - and, in his softly-spoken way, he’s engagingly open about his personal life, disclosing that he and his partner had their first child late last year, and alluding to the fact that while he once left Scotland for London as an angry young man, now, he’s not so angry, and not so young. For this show he had excellent back-up: Wild Lyle Watt on guitar, Andy Lucas on keyboards (Lucas performed a support set at short notice in place of Roseanne Reid, who was indisposed) and Iain Sloan on pedal steel.
Watt, swapping between acoustic and electric guitars, was a revelation with his nimble, fluid fretwork. The highlight of the set was a gorgeous take on Passing Places and Sandaig, both from the new album. Ebb and Flow, One Day at a Time, and Rebecca, all reminded you of Wilson’s strengths as an emotionally literate songwriter. There was a rousing Ye Jacobites by Name (Wilson being only partly successful in coaxing the audience to join in the chorus) and, near the end, Edina, his absorbing recollections of growing up in Edinburgh. Catch him the next time he’s on tour.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here