Music
Roddy Frame, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Keith Bruce
four stars
By the admittedly high standards of a homecoming gig by the former frontman of Aztec Camera, this visit to Glasgow's Killermont Street music hall started in a curiously subdued fashion. Even the addition of two female backing singers, later to double effectively on violins, could not lift the performance of a somewhat reserved band, and Frame himself was moved to remark on the subdued reverence of the audience.
Opening with Oblivious and Deep and Wide and Tall might have signalled a hits party but the songwriter had something more comprehensive in mind, delving into many of his 1980s albums for songs, with suprisingly little from this year's highly acclaimed Seven Dials album. It was a fine set list, including White Pony, Working in a Goldmine, On the Avenue and Let Your Love Decide, that showed quite how consistent the quality of his work has been, but it is always the earliest songs that win the day. We Could Send Letters was as astonishing as it always seems to be, and by then the banter with the crowd had picked up, Frame taking on all-comers and winning as he always does, riffing on a theme of arrogance and megalomania.
His frequent guitar-swapping gave way to a love-affair with a battered Fender Telecaster that added electric drive to Walk Out To Winter and Somewhere In My Heart before he returned alone for, naturally, Killermont Street. That unlikely hymn to the bus station across the road was turned into a medley with Wild Mountain Thyme for which we all provided the vocals. By the end of a generous two hours of singing and playing, Roddy Frame was back where we like him.
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