Last night, after the Metallica gig, I couldn’t find the guys I was there with so started walking back from the SECC, through the Anderston area of Glasgow to get to Queen Street train station. About 10 minutes into my walk, I spot a marginally inebriated guy contemplating taking a piss against the concierge station of a block of high rise flats.

Now, I don’t want to see the guy get lifted so I proceed to warn him that his makeshift urinal is in fact full of security guards and that he would be better employed having a tinkle in the bus shelter further down the road.

Him: “Cheers pal”

Me: “Nae Bother”

So far so good.

Next thing, he’s right in my face, reciting a passage from Trainspotting. The novel, from what I can gather, rather than the film. Leaning right into me and keeping pace with my walking speed.

“Picture the scene. Wednesday morning in the Volley. Me and Tommy are playing pool. No problems, and I’m playing like Paul —-ing Newman by the way. I’m giving the boy the tanning of a lifetime. So anyway, it comes to the final ball, the deciding shot of the tournament: I’m on the black and he’s sitting in the corner, looking all biscuit-arsed. Then this hard —- comes in. Obviously fancied himself. Starts looking at me. Right —-ing at me. Trying to put off, like, just for kicks. Looking at me as if to say, “Come ahead, square go.” Well, you know me, I’m no looking for trouble but at the end of the day I’m the —- with the pool cue and I’m game for a swedge. So I squared up, casual like. So what does the hard —- do, or so-called hard —-? —–s it. Puts down his drink, turns around, and gets the —- out of there. And after that, the game was mine.”

At this point I’m thinking that it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he’s going to hit me as soon as he reaches the end of the quote. In Scotland, you can receive abuse from wee neds hundreds of times and be fairly sure that it’s never going to amount to more than handbags at ten paces. The guy who will stick a knife in your ribs is the one who comes at you quoting Chaucer or Shakespeare. That’s the true bampot.

Anyway, I decide to front him out. He’s got about ten pints on me to start with. His co-ordination isn’t the best. Besides, he may still be harmless, just doing the trainspotting bit because I am from Edinburgh. But I’m braced.

But it all ends as bizarrely as it begun, with him wandering out into the middle of traffic on the Clydeside Expressway and two cars blaring their horns whilst I crossed the road to the other side of the street.

Regardless of his intentions, it was a fair feat of memory. I’ll give him that.

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I can’t speak. My knee is agony and I’m absolutely knackered. Must have been Marillion Weekend then……

I’ve been back from The Netherlands for a couple of days now and I’m slowly recovering. After arriving at Port Zelande on Friday, it was straight on the ‘wreck the hoose juice’ as is always the norm for day one of Marillion Weekend. A stunning gig, where the “Seasons End” album was played in it’s entirety along with a few tasty encores from that era.

On to the post gig “Rock Disco” where I proceeded to win the air guitar competition and a pass to Saturday mornings soundcheck with the band. The victory came at a cost though as half way through my Steve Harris routine on Run To The Hills, I knackered the ligaments on my left knee. This is an old injury which flares up on occassion.

A few more beers were had and on to the Norwegian party. By this stage though, the old peg was starting to hurt badly and I nipped off home to bed. When I woke on Saturday morning, I thought I’d broken my leg. Jesus. The pain was astonishing. I spent about an hour walking off the pain before I could even go near the soundcheck.

The soundcheck was an interesting and enlightening experience. I just presumed that they played full songs together out loud but it didn’t really work like that. It all seems to be done via in ear monitors. Interesting to watch though if not necessarily thrilling to hear. Just to see the band in their normal working environment without fans and to hear the interaction between them was interesting. As usual, Steve Hogarth was the star of the show. He’d perform in an empty room.

Saturday night was “20 years of Hogarth”, with a song played from each year of the singers tenure with the band. All excellent stuff, thoroughly enjoyed. An early night was called for as a result of standing for 3 hours on the gammy knee. Nice and fresh Sunday morning though.

If Saturday is always a dip for me in the Marillion Weekend then Sunday is where I come into my own. Another cracking setlist – “Epics night” – with a suitably buckled Mr Hogarth almost being ruled “unfit to perform” before pulling it out of the bag at the last minute. A few beers later and it was time to collapse in bed, ready for the morning’s return to Schipol and onwards to Edinburgh.

Highlight of the weekend? That’s easy, the heartstring jerking rendition of “Out of This World” complete with the accompanying movie montage above.

I’ll be back with you when I feel better.

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By this time next week I am likely to be well on my way to being severely drunk. I’m actually slightly concerned about my drinking capacity these days. I’m out of training. I used to be out most weekends but in recent years I have seriously reined that in and I’m not entirely sure I can do the all day drinking these days. Actually, I probably can. It’s the all day hangover the next again day which I can’t do.

I always make the same mistake every Marillion Weekend. Go bonkers on the Friday and suffer on the Saturday and Sunday. Last time around, I really struggled because the hungover me really struggled to deal with the fact that only wine or beer was available in the hall where the gigs take place (when I’m rough I can just about manage spirits and mixers but wine and lager leave me toiling).

I think I need a plan this year. Soft drinks in between the alchies?

That’s got “best laid plans…..” written all over it.

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Either way, you’ll not be surprised to learn that Alexandra from the X Factor isn’t amongst them. You’ll also not be surprised to find there is a certain hard rock edge to the list.

In no particular order:-

1. Jeff Buckley. As Bob Doolally would say “sadly dead now”. Although ‘Hallelujah’ was written by Leonard Cohen and has been performed by just about every singer in the world, there is only one definitive version and that is Jeff Buckley. I first heard his ‘Grace’ album when working in a bar in Edinburgh. The punters used to stick on ‘Hallelujah’ 9 times out of 10 and from that point on I was hooked. ‘Grace’ is an album that everyone should own.
2. Freddie Mercury. Bob is busy today with the “sadly dead now” proclamation. Simply one of the finest vocalists ever to live. The naive, teenaged me somehow failed to notice that he was as gay as Christmas. Big tache. Tight fitting clothes. Camp strutting. It was the same with Rob Halford from Judas Priest. I just thought the leather chaps, studs and leather cap were ‘Heavy Metal’. Makes no difference to me – just a comment on my observation skills.
3. Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden). The Air Raid Siren. What a voice. Scream for me bloggers. Got a bit ropey around the ‘No Prayer For The Dying’ and ‘Fear of The Dark’ albums where he had a tendency to growl more than sing in places but restored to his full vocal brilliance upon the reformation of the classic Maiden lineup. His solo work is brilliant as well. His cover version of ‘All the Young Dudes’ should have been naff but was instead excellent.
4. Steve Hogarth (Marillion). Very few vocalists have the vocal range and emotion in their voice to move an audience to tears. I’ve seen a guy standing next to me crying his eyes out to ‘Estonia’. Often unfairly considered the ‘new singer’ in Marillion (after the departure of Fish in 1988, Hogarth has been in the band for 20 years now compared to Mr Dick’s 7 year tenure at the helm. Marillion is Hogarth’s band now and they would never have flown so high and written such beautiful music if Fish had remained.
5. James La Brie (Dream Theater). An amazing vocalist with a brilliant range. Was offered the Iron Maiden job after Bruce Dickinson left in the early 90′s. I think it’s safe to say that had LaBrie had become Maiden vocalist instead of the dire Blaze Bayley, we may not have seen a return to the classic line-up.
6. Bob Dylan. His songs always sound better when someone else sings them and he sounds like a hoarse hyena when he sings. Somehow though it’s totally distinctive. One of the greats although I’m not entirely sure I get the whole film thing where loads of different people play him (including a female actress). Nothing to do with the music though.
7. Doro Pesch (Warlock). Bloody awful singer with poor pronunciation of English words with the strongest German accent since Klaus Meine. Maybe she’s in this list because I used to fancy her when I was a teenager. I don’t really know. Either way, songs like ‘Fur Immer’ and ‘East meets West’ evoke memories of a certain time for me so Doro is on the list.
8. Klaus Meine (Scorpions). For all the same reasons as Doro except I didn’t fancy him. As he gets older I’m finding it more difficult to physically tell him apart from Ronnie James Dio. It’s the balding perm and diminutive stature that does it.
9. The bird that sang the Cadbury’s flake advert in the 1980′s. ‘Only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate….’. Enough said.
10. Ozzy Osbourne. Another bloody awful vocalist who somehow still sounds good. I always find myself wondering how come Ozzy can sing clear as a bell but for some reason sounds like he’s had half a dozen strokes when he is speaking.
11. Ronnie James Dio. I actually prefer the Dio era Black Sabbath material to the Ozzy era stuff. Much more my style. Tracks such as ‘Mob Rules’ and ‘Heaven and Hell’ are classics. Looks like Rumpelstiltskin.
12. Oliver Hardy. I love all of the musical moments from the old L&H movies. Hardy had a great voice. ‘Shine on Harvest Moon’ and ‘On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine’. Excellent stuff. See how musically broad-minded I am…….
13. Mike Patton (Faith No More). ‘The Real Thing’ is still one of my favourite albums of all time. Cracking falsetto voice. Of course, he then proceeded to spoil his good work by grunting his way through the next God knows how many albums like a Donkey doing a particularly difficult shit. Redeemed himself on ‘Album of The Year’ though in a true return to form.

So there we have my a selection of my favourite singers. I wonder how many of them have sang ‘Hallelujah’?

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Happy St Andrews Day.

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Part of the delay in getting from the train station to the house was the huge melee which ensued when the queue at the taxi rank split into two different queues, running different directions. Abuse was hurled and at one stage a taxi driver got out and ‘footed the arse’ of a pissed teenager who was shouting abuse at taxi passengers (on the basis that there were a few empty seats in their cab, so why couldn’t they accommodate him and his mates). Needless to say, I ended up getting drawn into the argument along with the 30 other queueing punters.

Alter Bridge were excellent, although the sound quality left a bit to be desired. Support band “Hot Leg” were bloody awful though. Justin Hawkins seems to still think that The Darkness was more than a novelty and has tried to resurrect it with his new band. To be fair, kick the yodelling vocalist into touch and they are a fair to mediocre 80′s hair metal band. Inoffensive.

Marillion play the ABC in Glasgow on Sunday. I was toying with the idea of taking the car, but the sheer bloody hassle of finding parking in Glasgow, not to mention the one way system means I’ll probably take the train. I’m nostalgic for the days when all the bands came to Edinburgh. Now we don’t have a venue worth playing and I’m always having to get the train through which is a pain in the arse.

We’ve got a castle though. 1-0 Edinburgh.

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• being ‘Born to Rock’
• anything involving ‘The Dangerzone’ (whatever that is).
• being unable to ‘stop the fire burning out of control’.
• crazy nights.
• the midnight hour.

In other news, I’m working from home today and tomorrow. I have a massive report to write and find it easier to concentrate at home. Somehow I manage to get about 3 times the amount of work done. It’s great.

This post and my last one have been a bit short and ‘listy’. I’m feeling slightly uninspired this week.

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The other thing I’ve succumbed to is placing Adsense ads at the foot of posts. Servers cost money, especially this one so hopefully some clickthroughs from visitors will generate some much needed funding for the server. I get so many random visitors on this site – yesterdays web stats revealed that someone had found this site whilst searching for “gay urethra play”. Might as well get some money from them as they pass through.

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Some hasty backend SQL work saw me managing to copy all of my posts directly from database to database though and it’s looking fine. Given that I’ve had some DNS issues in the past, please post me a comment just to let me know you’ve arrived at this new incarnation.

As part of shifting over, I’ve installed a new design. I hope you like it. I found the old design a bit too minimalist for me and whilst this design is still fairly low key, I just think it looks a wee bit smarter. All thoughts welcome. There’s still a wee bit of work to be done though and I’ll continue as and when I get a chance.

And now for my last temptation. Last night I received an email from Marillion. I pre-ordered the new album about a year ago (or so it seems) and it is due for release at the start of next month. Basically they sent a link to download a non-CD quality (but still very high quality) copy of the album as referenced in this BBC article.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7606029.stm

Now, I’ve been all Leeds United about hearing this album for God knows how long but I find temptation like that unbearable. There’s something about receiving the final item, unwrapping it and popping it into the CD player. Let’s be honest, this new album is going to be an awesome experience both visually and aurally for those of us who pre-ordered. By all accounts the packaging will be awesome (the album will come as two hardback books in a presentation case).

Thing is, once you know you can listen to it, the temptation is overwhelming and I’ve already downloaded and listened to about 4 tracks. It’s like the box of chocolates in the fridge where you tell yourself you’ll only have one more and then find that you’ve eaten the whole box.

From what I’ve heard up to now though, it’s magnificent. Glorious, in fact.

As Mr H says, “One Love”.

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