The Barrowland Ballroom, 7 December
The Barrowland Ballroom welcomed, for the umpteenth time, one of Scotland’s enduring musical icons with Idlewild taking to the stage as part of a tour celebrating 30 years of existence and to promote their self-titled album released only a few months earlier.
A thirty-year career that had delivered over a dozen top 50 singles with You Held the World in Your Arms breaking into the top 10 in 2000 and 10 studio albums with 2002’s The Remote Part reaching as high as number 3 in the UK charts too.
With such a substantial catalogue to look back on, it wasn’t surprising that the setlist proved to be filled with fan favourites of cherrypicked songs from the past, with a sprinkling of new tracks that seamlessly fitted into their live repertoire.
Idlewild have the ability to mix raw energetic tracks as in the case of I Am What I Am Not or You Held the World in Your Arms with those of an anthemic shade like You Held The World In Your Arms or American English with those of the latter hue eliciting spontaneous crowd singalongs, every word swirling around the famous venue.
With a thirty-year career behind them, it wasn’t surprising that most of the audience were of an age when nostalgia was to the forefront of their minds. However, the tracks off the new album were, almost, as equally enthused over, a sign that the template, honed and developed over the preceding decades, has not been thrown out of the window to follow the latest trend.
Closing the night with In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction, the band reminded us all why we had followed them throughout their time together. In Roddy Woomble the band have the consummate front man, the link between the audience and the band, stalking across the stage, leading hand claps at waist level and often just picking up the microphone from the stand immediately prior to his vocal duties. Perfect timing. Perfect delivery.
Rod Jones prowls the stage like a demonic livewire a counterbalance to the step forward, step backward movement of fellow guitarist Allan Stewart. And behind them the trio of keyboard player Luciano Rossi, Colin Newton on drums and Andrew Mitchell on bass provide the backbone that completes the Idlewild signature sound.
Sundays nights in dreich Glasgow are made all the better when the music is as memorable as that played by Idlewild.
Support act, Jill Lorean
Some support acts come and go, and you don’t over think whether you might want to see or hear them again.
Jill Lorean, may be a pleasant addition to the list of acts that it might be worth checking out again at some point though.
Certainly the first few songs she played to ‘warm us up’ had that bluesy feel about it, suggesting this was what she was all about. Later songs lifted off her album might suggest a leaning to a more folk-rock based sound, however, there were certainly indications that her music could take a hold of you in the right circumstances, a smaller venue where she becomes the focal point. One for the future.
