Gig review: Skinner, Electric Circus, Edinburgh

“Singing the songs of Hipsway and Cowboy Mouth” was how this show from long-serving Caledonian crooner Grahame Skinner and band was billed.

To aficionados of soulful 1980s and 90s Scots pop, that description played to two very different audiences: in Hipsway’s case, to the casual fan who might expect a hit or two, and in that of mid-90s super(ish)group Cowboy Mouth, to the true devotee of Skinner’s lengthy, largely under-the-radar career with dimly remembered local outfits.

So it perhaps wasn’t that hard to understand when one middle-aged chap at the bar bellowed out “any chance of getting some Hipsway on?” nearly three-quarters of the way through the set. Skinner had until this point been concentrating on the band precious few remember. Songs like Waiting for an Echo and Sea Shanty No 1 passed by on a breeze of inoffensive balladry, and new song Yeah Yeah Yeah perhaps exemplified the worst elements of the set, its “yeah yeah yeah/do do do” chorus the tip of a lyrical iceberg which floated past rather than colliding in high drama.

Then all of a sudden, as if the bar-bound heckler had actually been listened to and obeyed, the former Hipsway vocalist finally played the hits in a powerful soul singer’s voice. Abetted by Douglas MacIntyre on yearning, wah-wah strewn guitar, Ask the Lord, Long White Car and The Broken Years picked up the tempo and the crowd’s spirits, before a truly triumphant encore of The Honeythief. It was like victory snatched from the jaws of that cowboy.

Rating: ***