The Vale is a musical iceberg, inverted in the murky waters of Glasgow Queen Street. I say ‘inverted’ because only about a tenth of it is visible to the unknowing eye - a small, traditional (and most pertinently - stageless) pub where, it must be said, I arrived with quite some trepidation, on Friday night. There was barely room to house the assorted drinkers, at all of six o’clock, nowhere for a triangle-player to exercise his craft, never mind a four-piece band. Not only that, but to put it tactfully, the patrons of The Vale did not look as if they fancied much in the way of live music of an evening.
Hooray for my lack of attention to detail, I’d missed a door on the way in that bore the promise of a ‘lounge’. I met an excited Dave coming down the way: ‘Wait until you see the stage’, and he wasn’t lying neither…The Vale’s upstairs was a small, dark, high room. Few seats, few tables - the majority of the space obviously given over to standing room only. The stage was built into a recess in the wall, some six feet above crowd-level and half of which looked down the staircase I had just come up. A waist-high partition saved over-eager groovers from tumbling down the stairs or landing on the audience and on closer inspection, there was about as much room for manoeuvre up there as there had been downstairs. Still, it was an unusual and interesting set-up and as a life-long short guy I was rather looking forward to being able to see the tops of peoples’ heads while I was singing.
Soundcheck went well- it’s always a pleasure to work with soundguys who actually care about what they’re doing and treat bands as a collection of people with feelings rather than an inconvenience, and our man was one of the nicest I’ve come across. Anyone who’ll test their speakers with Monty Python routines and William Shatner doing ‘Common People’ is alright in my book.
Four acts of the evening meant that we had to wait a while to get on as we were headlining, but that was alright. First up was a young lady named Samantha Seth, a slip of a lassie with an acoustic guitar and a voice that belied her size and songs of such maturity that it was hard to believe she was only sixteen. She managed to both silence a room full of people and also, and this is the hard part for an acoustic act, to keep them quiet throughout the duration of her set. Thoroughly enjoyed her and I think it may very well be a name you’ll be seeing againShe was followed by Man Down Door and I’ll Be The Hyena, one a curiously updated Joy Divisionesque type of affair and the other belting out some powerful and full rock styles. I’d begun to lose focus by this point to be quite honest as I had by then aquired some money, and so was drinking and bopping more than I was taking notes but they were both really pretty good.
And then there was the us. Some gigs are nightmarish. You think nightmares are dreaming you’re in front of a crowd dressed in your underwear? Imagine it in reality, a hundred indifferent people ignoring your increasingly desperate attempts to ingratiate yourself to them and - and this is soul-destroying to any musician - actually talking to each other and not listening to the band. Not good news.
But this wasn’t one of them.
Rarely, so very rarely, you play a gig where everything goes right. The crowd get you, the vibe is good, the songs run on rails and the connection between the performers and the observers feeds and amplifies both itself and everyone involved.
And this was one of those kinds of gigs.
We were told by a magazine reviewer that had came along that we had ‘owned the stage’ and I really do believe that to be the case. Not to the detriment of the other acts, but in the sense that we had made the most of the time that we had on it and exceeded even our own expectations.
I’m the world’s worst person to talk to after a gig, I so rarely pay attention to what’s going on around me- the crowd reaction, the band’s performance - I lose myself in worrying over silly wee things that I rarely even enjoy gigs any more, rather I’m relieved when they’re over, but this one could’ve gone on forever as far as I was concerned. I felt a real vibe and buzz about the place - people were digging on our stuff, attentive to what the band were doing and actually understanding what we were about.
Marvellous crowd, great acts, well organised and presided over with some style and grace by Ian and Colin the sound gurus and Jena, of podboy records.
Great P.R work done by Ross, some lovely photos by Lauren, the band give our thanks to both of them.
A great gig, a great night and a great buzz that still hasn’t fully left and I think will carry us to Edinburgh on Tuesday on a real high.
Highpoint: The stage made it hard for people to switch off to unknown songs after two or three, as is normal for the average attention span of people, and both they and the bands were the richer for it. Lowpoint: None. I’ve said it. I don’t know that I ever will again. But this gig was perfect.
‘Gies yer jaicket!’Setlist
Don’t Turn Back
Falling Awake
Martin Blank
Brown To Blue
Empathise, Not Sympathise
Second Best
Even Angels Die
