George Glen

Great fun at the Sing In The City Awards party 2023. We do nights out like no others! 350 members, our biggest award party yet, 14 awards, Hanley and the Baird band, what a night!

His Lordship play pure, unadulterated Rock’n’Roll. Straightforward but skilful, raucous but intelligent, cool but hot and sweaty. Always brilliant! Guitarist James Walbourne and drummer Kristoffer Sonne, joined by bassist Dave Page. What a glorious reminder of how much I love the 3 piece rock band! Awesome.

I’d never heard of Hot Garbage before recommended by Andy, but I was promised they were good. Indeed, they were!

Attended by George , Andy & Douglas

What a strange but cool experience! This show was originally billed as Tony Fox Sales and friends touring  the classic Iggy Pop album ’Lust For Life’ on it’s 45 years anniversary.  Tony and brother Hunt Sales played on the album. Tony became unavailable and at the last minute Glen Matlock took over on bass, which made me happy to see a real live Sex Pistol join a stellar band including drums hero Clem Burke and guitar hero Kevin Armstrong. And with Katie Puckrick singing no-one really knew what to expect! 

Honourable mention first to supports Walker And The Brotherhood of the Grape and Ladies … most enjoyable. A packed crowd were now excited for the star attractions, and especially Kerry eagerly awaiting her drums hero Clem! And peering at the setlist I saw 24 songs … gonna be a long night. 

But the first part of the set flew past with a track by track rendition of the classic ‘Lust For Life’ album. Band and Katie sounding great and even the less well known songs felt familiar and done justice to. Then followed a selection of songs from Iggy and the band’s various careers. All good and the crowd really enjoying. Karen was suffering from standing so long so we stuck it out to see Clem playing ‘Rip Her To Shreds’ by Blondie then said our goodbyes. I’m told we saw much of the best but diehards certainly got their moneys worth! Kerry of course was over the moon to get a drumstick and selfie with Clem. Magic! 

Attended by George, Karen, Andy, Jude, Kerry & Douglas

Our first performance of 2023 on Saturday night saw us play an extra special show for ‘Pretty In Pink’ Donna’s birthday. Such a lovely crowd and Donna got to play air guitar for the encore. We played some old favourites, some of which will be heading to the subs bench as we’ve got plenty of new songs on the way.

We’ve got 3 extra special gigs booked already for 2023, Mums the word on those for now but you won’t want to miss them….!!

My third time seeing Dry Cleaning and one of my favourite bands just get better and better. I’ve not listened to new album ‘Stumpwork’ that much yet, but it’s growing on me and the wonderful ‘Gary Ashby’ might have been my top song of 2022!

And what a brilliant set with the best new songs and the best of my favourite bangers from the past. Their confidence and different personalities really shine now. Superb playing and contrasting bouncing about from Tom and Lewis v Florence statue like with telling facial expressions only. I was right at the front so got the whole experience. Cool support acts in Dehd and Thus Love too. Magic!

Attended by George, Andy & Stu

Young Fathers are a significant force in modern music and I’m really proud of the international impact of three guys from Edinburgh. But I have always manged to just miss going to see them, ’til now. And to be honest their music has never been quite my cup of tea though I had heard they were amazing live. I can confirm that’s absolutely correct!

This event was the album launch show for their new album ‘Heavy Heavy’ and though I enjoyed my sneak preview listens they didn’t major on those songs only and included plenty of past favourites. Much appreciated by me since I enjoyed hearing all their best songs.

Like the packed enthusiastic crowd I was well impressed by their performance. So intense and arresting, great singing and moving interplay between the three and supporting musician Callum Easter. They have serious messages and matching demeanours, no smiles were cracked, well only once! I smiled all the way through though. Superb, must catch them again soon.

Attended by George

What a great night, gig of the year contender already! Just an amazing bill of cool bands. A sold out crowd got there especially early to catch young Edinburgh band No Windows who were very good and a name to watch out for. We had no expectations about next act Hector Gannet, but as soon as they started everyone commented how they were blown away by the tremendous sound so we could clearly hear such interesting songs played brilliantly. A lovely surprise.

Pale Blue Eyes had a job to follow that, but succesfully took the good vibes even higher with a storming set everyone will long remember. For a primarily 3 piece band (with additional keys player), they have a varied and sophisticated sound combining cool playing and catchy hooks. Very impressed. Chatted to bass player Aubrey afterwards and am contemplating his recommendation of his great sounding 6 year old La Bella flatwound strings on his P bass .. a Jamerson fan like me. And Chris bought the T Shirt! Wonderful occasion with a happy crowd and many friends.

Attended by George, Chris, Andy & Jude

I know it’s a tribute act, but Andy and I had to go and see them play just about our favourite ever album, all 4 sides of ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ by Genesis from 1975. I really enjoyed the whole experience. The Musical Box have been re-creating Genesis for nearly 30 years (not with the same line up) and have made a succesful career out of it. They licenced the ability to re-create the entire ‘Lamb ..’ tour including costumes and slide show and are supported and endorsed by Genesis members.

They play, sing and act the whole show perfectly … surely better that Genesis would nowadays! I sang along like a super fan, remembering (nearly) all the words. Although the obviously ‘mature’ audience seemed to enjoy the show, they sat like a load of statues with hardly a head nod … cmon guys this is great … get into it! And … disappointingly not very loud … it’s a rock show FFS! I need to feel as well as hear the music. Minor niggles aside, we were very impressed.

Attended by George & Andy

A quirky but interesting band are The Cool Greenhouse. A key element is the witty spoken poetry lyrics of front-man Tom Greenhouse. Unfortunately the sound wasn’t good enough to enable me to hear many of those nice words which I thought defeated much of the pupose and pissed me off!

I was much more entertained by the mad stylings and songs of support act Cod O’Donnell who I will definitely look out for more now. Cool small (very small) venue.

Attended by George & Andy