The latest gig on our A to Z Musical Tour was ……
It’s Friday night and Glasgow city centre is ‘Alive and Kicking’ as we head to the latest gig on our A to Z Musical Tour. A few firsts along the way too. A first visit to The Flying Duck as a venue and first time seeing Glasgow/East Kilbride band Helicon although their albums have been in the collection for a few years since I first came across them via The Fuzz Club and my old mate Jim Dobson.
If you didn’t know The Flying Duck was there, you would probably walk by it. Down in the depths of the city’s main streets there is a warren of basement venues like this offering music lovers with a depth, no pun intended, and range of music on a nightly basis.
It was dark. It was dingy. It was perfect for tonight’s gig.
Support act – Al Lover
It’s amazing what you can do with an electronic box of tricks these days. Was it a DJ deck, was it a Groovebox, a sound mixer? Whatever you want to call it, Los Angeles based experimental producer Al Lover is a master of this art form. And art form it certainly is, offering a psychedelic groove that had almost everyone swaying in time to the beats that were emanating from the speakers.
He’s collaborated with a host of acts that are at the forefront of the fuzz/shoegaze genre from The Night Beats to Goat, The KVB and The Osees and you can understand why he would be in such demand to work with them.
The basement venue resonated to his non-stop set. He introduced himself at the beginning. He thanked the audience for their appreciation at the end. He left the floor for the main act to become the focus of the night.
However, in the forty or so minutes he was our centre of attention, he delivered a sonic soundscape that set us all up perfectly for Helicon.
Thank you Al. (Now, is it ever too late to learn some new tricks for myself?)
And it might be appropriate at this point of the blog to share an Al Lover mix of Helicon’s Permo track too.
With curfew set at 10pm for the main act, there wasn’t a great deal of time to spend waiting on Helicon taking the stage. All seven of them! Squeezed somewhere on the shallow and limited stage we had drums, bass, keyboards, guitars, sitars, vocal mics and more!
Following a hectic tour schedule, Helicon were back on their home turf doing what they do best, a mesmerising blend of psychedelic rock, tinged with eastern promise with the regular inclusion of Graham Gordon’s sitar. If George Harrison was still alive I’m sure he would have approved!
Each song is built up with layer upon layer of sounds that fill the venue with a positive vibe from start to finish.
The opening track Heliconia sets the tone for the next hour or so. These aren’t songs in the traditional sense, more experimental jams that have been rehearsed to bits for targeted delivery aimed at the audience in front of them.
Their sound is part George Harrison, part Deep Purple/Black Sabbath, part Pink Floyd, but all so distinctly Helicon.
They ended the night with two songs that epitomise the place in the genre, Seraph and Tae the Moon.
(I had to look this up but a seraph is an angel — a heavenly, human-like creature with wings.) Seraph starts slowly, quietly with the sitar taking the initial lead. Unlike many of the songs during the night, the song reverts to musical type – verse and chorus. However, like any creature with wings it eventually transcends into the atmosphere with a bombastic jam that perfectly sums up the depth of music delivered by the band.
Tae the Moon typifies the jam structure the band has become known for. Each of the seven members on stage, in addition to a couple of interlopers, raised the roof with a finale so powerful that everyone was left in awe of the soundscape that was being played out in front of them.
We all wanted more, but the dreaded curfew no doubt leant heavily on the band and the venue staff. Still another time for both Al Lover and Helicon. Thank you both for a truly great night down in the depths of our home city.
About the venue
The Flying Duck, 142 Renfield St, Glasgow G2 3AU
PREHISTORY
Way back in time the space that will eventually be The Flying Duck opened as The Apollo in 1991. Named as a homage to the original Apollo Theatre on Renfield Street which had been demolished 1985, our (much younger at the time) founders wanted to continue on the legacy of Renfield Street having a great space for artists. Over the years our Apollo became known as a place to haunt as people used the bar, venue and rehearsal spaces to get together, make music and have a good time.
Eventually, the keys to the Apollo had to be given up. A massive flood from the sprinkler system in the building above ruined the premises. Over the following years, the site was a number of questionable night clubs until we got the keys back in 2007.
NOW
After a bumpy start coming out of COVID and a crazy water leak, The Duck is now truly finding its feet. Unreversing the rooms, we’re back to having a hidden (no really, it’s hard to find) cosy late night bar space, now affectionally known as the Apollo bar, as a call back to our original venue on the spot.
Our revised venue space is by far the best layout we’ve had and since the switch in Autumn 23, we’re already hearing about some great feedback and are looking forward to establishing an amazing, one of a kind, program of events!
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