Gig review: King Creosote, Edinburgh

A PRIMARY school stage in an Edinburgh suburb isn’t where you would expect to find your average Mercury Music Prize nominated artist performing on a chilly Monday night in February, but then Kenny “King Creosote” Anderson has always liked to do things differently.

King Creosote. Picture: Robert Perry

King Creosote

Broomhouse Primary School, Edinburgh

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He was turning out here in support of the BIG Project, the Broomhouse-based initiative to get young people between the ages of five and 18 expressing themselves through song, which is led by fellow well-travelled Scots muso Kim Edgar.

For a little over an hour, three distinct sets were played – the BIG Project’s near 40-strong choir on their own, then Anderson solo with his guitar, and finally an encore featuring all concerned on a couple of his songs.

By Anderson’s standards it was a low-key set, although it contained something of the community hall spirit for which his Fence events have become famed over the years. The audience was a seated group of parents and friends of the choir packed into Broomhouse Primary’s small gymnasium, and it seemed to be the older members of the audience who were most enamoured of more measured songs like John Taylor’s Month Away and Not One Bit Ashamed.

As Edgar pointed out, though, before taking a seat behind the piano for an encore which included Bubble from the Mercury-approved Diamond Mine album, being able to perform with an artist like Anderson was a valuable creative learning experience for all involved; and it will be happening all over again at the same venue on 24 March, this time with Karine Polwart in attendance.

(Seen on 3.2.14)