Idlewild and Jill Lorean, Edinburgh review: 'closed on a luminous, incendiary high'

Idlewild singer Roddy Woomble | Euan Roberston

Idlewild and Jill Lorean, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh ★★★★

“Everything's cancelled,” Idlewild singer Roddy Woomble reminded us. “This is the only gig that's happening in Edinburgh.” Cheers went up for this apparent show of resilience against the elements, but it was a bittersweet celebration for anyone hoping to enjoy three days of music in the capital.

Just several hours earlier, all outdoor Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations had all been called off amid severe weather warnings, so this sold-out official Night Afore concert on 30 December found itself bumped up to being the main musical event happening in Edinburgh before the Bells.

Support came from Jill Lorean, a tenderly wistful musical experience for just singer Jill O’Sullivan’s acoustic guitar and delicately powerful voice, yet with lyrics of real bite.

The song Your Younger Self, she said, was “just a little uplifting number about midlife crisis”, while there was also an outing for her old band Sparrow and the Workshop’s song The Gun. Her music was the ideal mood for this (almost) year-ending moment.

Jill O’Sullivan, aka Jill Lorean | Stephanie Gibson

Headliners Idlewild were also up to the task of delivering a gig rich in all that might be expected from such an event, from hard-partying energy to a sense of pathos and deep-rooted nostalgia. This is a band, after all, which celebrates the 30th anniversary of its foundation in Edinburgh in 2025 (with, said Woomble, a new album and tour on the cards), and memories seemed to be on Woomble’s mind as well.

He closed I’m a Message by noting the song is a whole quarter of a century old, and pointing out that Idlewild played the earliest version of it in this city’s long-gone Cas Rock café. A light cheer went up from the few with memories of those days. “Thank you for your returning custom” deadpanned Woomble, ever an understated but charming presence.

Earlier he had also pointed out there was no barrier at the front of the stage, “but then we're all middle-aged so it shouldn't be a problem… it might have been in the 1990s.” Of the Assembly Rooms’ main hall itself, he noted: “It's very grand, with a very nice ceiling. Not that rock ‘n’ roll. I don't mean that in a bad way.”

It was, in fact, the ideal space to hear the newest incarnation of Idlewild, and I don’t mean that in a bad way either. The hall feels both intimate and spacious, perfect for both the melodic, folk-adjacent wistfulness of American English and In Remote Part, and the throwback, youthfully spirited thrash of A Modern Way of Letting Go and A Film For the Future, both of which were held back to help close the show on a luminous, incendiary high.

Elsewhere, Idlewild’s old and new music has matured along with the band’s members and audience, from the spacious-sounding hits When I Argue I See Shapes and You Held the World in Your Arms to the Queen-like piano and escalating drum-and-guitar coda of Interview Music and the swirling prog rock loudness of Make Another World. Listening to them play is like hearing past, present and future rolled into one – the perfect band for the occasion.