Tonight’s Iain Morrison concert will be my first time at the Glad Café, in fact, it will be the first gig I have been to on the Southside of the city.
Good words have swam across the Clyde, spreading rumours of a venue that knows what its community wants.
Good reviews are joining those words, slinking around the city alongside them, proclaiming they are “so Glad we made it,” (oh, STV, you made a funny) and that the Café is “brilliant” and “intimate” (The Sunday Times).
The Glad Café is tempting us underground and over the bridges. It takes an impressive place to make West Enders turn coat.
It is the Glad Café who approached Iain Morrison to play tonight, he thanks them on several occasions and seems interested in their ventures e.g. the choir.
The booking speaks volumes for both the venue and the artist: the venue has a clear idea of the sounds and sights they want to home in their small but special space, they have the confidence to ask and Iain Morrison is continually involved and interested in the creative places and people around him.
The 100 capacity room is filled tonight with plastic school style chairs and some small wooden tables, it is busy, possibly full, and some are standing.
The lights are low and the stage demure; two seats with no props/ backdrops.
Iain Morrison’s live set is something that continually changes, sometimes he plays completely solo on occasions with a full band, often accompanied by poet Daibhidh Martin but tonight with cellist Pete Harvey of Meursault.
The cello is great and new album, To the Horizon, Sir, sounds stronger live.
The strings bring tension to some songs and ease to others where recorded they seem to sit in the middle of that spectrum and underwhelm.
Morrison has a signature style of soft and hushed tones but live the difference he can achieve in his range is clearer, surprising and reinforces the emotion of the songs.
Acoustic gigs are aplenty but not always plentiful, they can be ballad bland, Singer-songwriter soggy.
This gig is not humdrum guitar strum, it is more of an immersive experience, where the audience is completely engaged with Morrison’s storytelling and traditional talents.
New versions of songs from his past bands Poor Old Ben and Crash My Model Car are greeted by chants and standing ovations from die-hard fans.
He plays a rousing song on the whistle mid-set, ‘Ghost on the Water’ (a song in the piping tradition) with its long, unwavering notes is poignant, haunting and receives a small gasp from someone in the audience.
A highlight is ‘Broken off Car Door’ from the album Skimming Stones Sinking Boats, the opening plucks of which are greeted with a warm hum of recognition.
A sad song, made sadder with the sweeps of the cello, ‘Broken off Car Door’ is a track that I have never known the story to, that like so many other lyrically-led songs, I’ve attached my own meaning.
Tonight, Morrison explains that it is about an intelligent young friend of his from a successful and ambitious family who was supposedly pre disposed and destined to study medicine but joined the circus and Europe, to the disappointment of some and the joy of others.
The night’s encore (played refreshingly as an integral part of the set instead of a want-me, need-me, on-off stage affair) is acoustic ballad ‘All of Heaven’s Birds’ from the album Trust the Sea to Guide Me.
The song is about a reclusive Lewis man, akin to the mysterious figure in Home Alone, whose shovelling scrapes and vivid stares unsettled us all as children.
The man contacted Morrison when he had learned that there was a growing amount of young people in Lewis beginning to write music together.
Morrison was invited into the man’s home, the same man who had been a curiosity to him and his friends for years.
It transpired that the man’s wife had died soon after they were married, he had mourned by the coast and through the bottle, the man was very old, seeking company and a chance to tell his stories.
He told Morrison that he could hear birds, that those birds were singing louder every day and that those birds were going to carry him back to his wife.
The whole room sings the chorus: “See, see all of heaven’s birds over me, me. Trying to pick me up so we can leave, leave. Let’s just have one more glass…”
Words: Leonie Colmar
