Homecoming's Final Fling strikes right note at SECC

Published on Saturday 28 November 2009 23:27

THOUSANDS of pop fans converged on the SECC in Glasgow last night for Homecoming Live – the Final Fling, the flagship music event of Scotland's Year of Homecoming.

Among those scheduled to appear over six hours and three halls were acts as diverse as Deacon Blue, The Skids, The View and Dame Evelyn Glennie.

Although the size of the venues had been downscaled through slow ticket sales, all three shows had a capacity crowd last night.

The biggest concert, held in the 3000-capacity Clyde Aditorium, aka the Armadillo, was headlined by confirmed Scottish favourites Deacon Blue and featured a host of successful pop acts from the 80s including Hue and Cry, Lloyd Cole, Midge Ure, The Bluebells, Kevin McDermott and former Love And Money frontman James Grant, as well as punk veterans The Skids.

Over in the main SECC building, Scotland's healthy indie scene was represented in Hall 2 by the likes of Teenage Fanclub, Idlewild, The View, King Creosote, The Dykeenies and the recently reformed Vaselines who became one of Scotland's most influential acts after being cited as Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's favourite group.

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers provided the opening flourish in the Lomond Suite, heralding a bill of respected stars from the folk and classical worlds, including Eddi Reader, Mike Scott of The Waterboys, Dame Evelyn Glennie, with pianist Philip Smith, and Dougie MacLean, composer of the Homecoming theme song, Caledonia, which was awarded the Homecoming Scotland Tartan Clef Award on Friday night.

REVIEW: CLYDE AUDITORIUM – Fiona Shepherd

As the audience were still filing into the hall, The Red Hot Chilli Pipers got the party started with some Caledonian cabaret silliness, including bagpipe renditions of Rocking All Over The World and We Will Rock You.

Hue and Cry were the first of the Scotpop veterans to take the stage for a bite-sized set including their biggest hit Labour Of Love and Looking For Linda.

Tommy Reilly, the youngest performer on the bill by some stretch, was not even born when most of his gigmates were first bothering the charts, but he won over the crowd with his acoustic songs and his endearing rambling chit-chat.

The Bluebells' short but perfectly formed set culminated with most of the audience on their feet for Young At Heart.

Midge Ure has a mere 35 years of material to choose from. In the end, he plumped for a couple of Ultravox numbers, Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas and a surprisingly effective acoustic rendition of Visage's synth-pop classic Fade To Grey.

The acoustic performances continued with Glaswegian singer-songwriter Kevin McDermott, who grabbed everyone's attention with a game version of Tom Jones' Delilah, and former Love and Money frontman James Grant, who dedicated his first song to the band's bassist Bobby Paterson, who died a couple of years ago.

Thoughts turned again to musicians we have lost when Dunfermline punks The Skids took to the stage without their original guitarist Stuart Adamson, but his fans must have been happy to see Adamson's former Big Country bandmate Bruce Watson take his place for the most energised set of the night.

REVIEW: HALL 2 – David Pollock

"Hoots mon", exclaimed the Vaselines' Eugene Kelly during a technical hitch in his band's set. "Err, there's a moose loose aboot the hoose?"

Well, how else could he connect with a diverse audience whose only unifying feature was their Scottishness?

In the event, the selection of alternative and more youthful artists in the SECC's Hall 2 provided a cross-section of recent Scottish musical fashions without quite capturing what's iconic about the nation's music scene. Glasgow's Twin Atlantic and the Dykeenies provided punk-pop thrills while Dundonians The Law and their more renowned (and headlining) friends The View appealed to the pint-chuckers and Saltire-wavers.

It was the less likely artists who provided the night's most charming moments, Teenage Fanclub representing two decades of jangling Glasgow indie with Sparky's Dream and Everything Flows, and Norman Blake impudently declaring "I'm starting to come up on that acid now"; an accordion-bearing King Creosote delicately crooning his way through the gorgeous My Favourite Girl; an ecstatically received Idlewild closing with In Remote Part.

And the Vaselines defied their bookish demeanour and hinted at the wealth of alternative history not represented here with the mighty You Think You're A Man.

REVIEW: LOMOND SUITE – Malcolm Jack

Bumped from the Clyde Auditorium down to the soulless Lomond Suite the third-tier bill of Homecoming Live could have come off worse for wear. But the mood was upbeat and the place packed as the eclectic line-up veered from classical maestros to folk singer-songwriters, yet still carried the audience along.

Kilt-clad rock and bagpipe fusionists Red Hot Chilli Pipers made a quick dash from the Armadillo to open their second bill of the evening with up-tempo tunes that had most punters on their feet by the climax.

Proceedings then promptly took a sharp turn for the esoteric with a set from classical percussionist Evelyn Glennie, accompanied by pianist Philip Smith. Despite being comfortably the most unlikely artist on the Homecoming Live line-up, Glennie's racing and at times cacophonous compositions were well received and a pleasure to watch.

"I was told I'll get lynched if I don't play this," quipped Dougie MacLean in the preamble to his dewy-eyed anthem Caledonia – the official theme tune of the Year of Homecoming.

Eddi Reader then sashayed her way through tracks from her Songs Of Robert Burns album. Feet were stamping at the end, and Reader herself jigging.