Playlouder - Music is the Network

I'm sat on the stage at the Luminaire, actually on the stage, polishing off a bottle of Pinot Noir (using a glass would seem pretentious by this point), and Aidan John Moffat's ruddy, free-range-bearded cheeks are so close that I feel like a grandchild on his knee.

"Come here wee Jamie an' ah'll read y'a poem aboot the last gurrl ah fucked."

He doesn't say that of course, but anyone with even a passing familliarity with the big Scotchman's work will know he's a storyteller, and one whose lurid tales stand on no ceremony, and pack a punch to the gut, while keeping one hand firmly on the heart.

What he does say is "Turn that fucking phone off", which provokes a nervous round of applause and laughter from the visibly awed audience. And, horror of horrors, it takes me a moment to notice it's my phone - my phone that I never use, that nobody ever calls me on, that's ringing.

Of course I'm quick to act (almost spilling wine over myself in the process) and humble in my mumbled apology, but now I have to sit through the set within spitting distance of Mr. Moffat with him knowing I'm the cunt who forgot to turn his phone off.

Things were much easier when George Pringle was on stage. She was drunk, she was nervous, and she was the one who looked like her phone had just gone off. She was also, against the odds, coherent, semi-professional, and thoroughly convincing. 

Her frantic laptop beats were sparse and addictive, and in amongst the stream-of-consciousness there were one-line gems and even great hooks, particularly in 'I'm Very Scared Buster...' and 'We Could Have Been Heroes'. 

That her onstage persona is reminiscent of Dr. Feelgood's Wilko Johnson - all mad staring eyes, pacing back and forth - only endeared her more to me, and yet if she falls offstage at the end of every performance, her career may be tragically cut short.

Right, so, Aidan - he's all composure and calm next to that, eh? In fact, it'd be easy to pitch them as yin and yang wouldn't it?

Not as simple as that though is it? While they work well as a Blake-esque 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' package on paper, there's enough world-weariness in her and enough wide-eyed wonderment in him to upset the metaphorical apple cart and send fruit tumbling down cobbled streets in a way that had best not be compared to mobile phone adverts right now.

Recent album 'I Can Hear Your Heart' is performed in near-as-dammit-entirety, (though mercifully we're spared his rendition of The Boss' 'Hungry Heart'), and I'm amazed to find my appetite for Arabstrap pushed right to the back of my mind as I soak it all up. He's a way with words that can be crude without being clunky, and sparing without being lacking, and that he gets by on a little toy keyboard, and sits down for the entire set, shows a self-confidence which is enviable almost to the point of resentment.

Admitting that I was too drunk to remember exactly what happened after the encore is part of what makes me a credible journalist, though I can tell you it felt anticlimactic for me - the love songs crooned with accompanying guitarist seemed oh-so MOR after the majestic thrall of his set proper, though I suppose you can't expect everyone to fall offstage, and thinking about it, given our proximity, I'm grateful Mr. Moffat didn't.

Though the weight of words that sank in makes for a melancholic meander to my place of rest, even when sozzled, one can't help but take inspiration from the words of the artist at the foot of the ladder, who may one day find her place in the armchair on (rain)cloud 9 next to Mr. Moffat:

"You don't have to work at HMV when you write so beautifully".