The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 21 February 2025
It’s Friday night in Edinburgh and Pete Wylie is kicking off his latest tour at The Voodoo Rooms.
A new venue on our #AtoZMusicalTour, it lives up to all the expectations we had. Compact, good sound quality and a venue with all the ornate trappings of a building that has A Listed status.
The album Songs of Strength and Heartbreak is 25 years old, and the tour is built around playing the entire track listing with a couple of notable exceptions for classic Pete Wylie songs of the past.
It was also the first gig of this tour and in many ways, we were lucky that it took place at all as Pete Wylie was beginning to feel ill, a feeling that led to the next night’s show in Dundee being cancelled. That he was still going strong almost two hours later is a testimony to his professionalism, despite the self-deprecating banter that he brings to each show.
As Pete Wylie approaches his 67th birthday he hasn’t lost the confident swagger, the loveable Liverpool rogue with his sharp Scouse banter with strong social and political beliefs. He has though lost his former band! and was at pains to tell the audience that it was his previous band who sacked him!
In their place were four young band members, including Elliot Gaspar and Ross Munro doubling up as the support act Limbo Days who, despite a barrage of slagging off throughout the set, created the ideal complement for a singer who mixed his life stories with singing the songs we all came to hear.
A look around the room confirmed that many had been following the career of Pete Wylie since his early days in the late 1970s with other Liverpool luminaries like Ian McCulloch and Julian Cope. Throw in name checks for John Peel, Liam and Patsy, Jo Caulfield, Paddy Hill and a few others too and it’s not hard to imagine that he would be an ideal dinner companion to hear a lot, lot more.
Throughout the night though, it was the quality of the songs that kept everyone enthralled, including the new band members who might have been taken aback by the slapdash nature of proceedings.
Pete Wylie had some notable hits, Sinful and The Story of the Blues made significant dents in the UK charts. And yet, on the way back home from the bus station on both Friday and Sunday night following Mogwai’s gig in Edinburgh too, the taxi drivers had never heard of him. What a pity, as he does deserve a wider audience.
If it’s entertainment you are after, with a significant nod to a really well produced album, then this show is one for you. Pete Wylie and his Mighty Wah! were indeed a mightily fine way to spend an evening.
Support Act
Limbo Days
Elliot Gaspar is the driving force behind Limbo Days and was able to call on multi instrumentalist Ross Munro to help him with a few songs before the main act.
During the short set, the songs seemed as if they would not seem out of place in independent movies as background music. While there was something catchy about the songs, the addition of the sax leant weight to each and will be worth looking back in maybe a year or so to see how Elliot has developed his writing and production.
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