NOT QUITE THE X-FACTOR....

Yesterday, many millions of UK residents willingly sat in front of their television screens and then spend ludicrous sums of money in phone calls to vote for one of four acts to win this year's X-Factor contest - the winner having a near guarantee of having the #1 single in the UK pop charts at Xmas 2010.

Thankfully, there are antidotes out there, and mine was provided by Butcher Boy.

Just three weeks ago, the band came out of hibernation to lay their first gig in ages at a small cafe in the West End of Glasgow. Yesterday was their second gig of 2010, and in keeping with the tradition of playing unusual venues, we found ourselves gathered in the splendour of the Jeffrey Room (pictured above) at the famous Mitchell Library in the Charing Cross area of the city.

The gig was preceded by a Xmas Fayre at the same venue with the band set to play between 3pm and 4.15pm. Entrance was just £5 but under 10s were allowed in free. Come 3pm, there were at least 200 people present, including the various stallholders/exhibitors at the Fayre. Many of them were family and friends of the band, with lots of young nieces and nephews in attendance. Oh and fans also brought along their kids. Comrade Colin's three boys were there, two of whom were making their concert debuts. Oh and another mate of mine - Doug - was also there with his wife and two sons - again the boys were making their concert debuts. It might not be up there with seeing Elvis or The Beatles as your first live gig, but it's quite a cool experience nonetheless...

This time the band were at full complement with drummer/percussionist Findlay MacKinnon coming up from his home in the Midlands of England.

The venue was quite stunning, but it was far from ideal for a perfect gig for a music snob like me. Too many toddlers just being themselves at the back of the room was a bit of a distraction and the lack of feedback monitors gave the band one or two problems. John's vocals were a bit muffled early on and there was a bit of a screech a couple of times when Maya was on the cello...but to be fair to the two blokes on hand to deal with the sound the problems were soon rectified (sorry I never got their names or I'd give a personal thanks right now).

The set was very similar to that played at Offshore Cafe three weeks back, albeit with a different running order:-

Days Like These Will Be The Death Of Me
The Day Our Voices Broke
Carve A Pattern
I Know Who You Could Be
I Am The Butcher
When I'm Asleep
Girls Make Me Sick
Helping Hands
Imperial
I Could Be In Love With Anyone
A Better Ghost
This Kiss Will Marry Us
There Is No-one Who Can Tell Where You Have Been
Every Other Saturday

But having the full complement made this a totally different gig altogether. Offshore was akin to an Unplugged even and while the Jeffrey Room showed just how wonderful the songs are when they have all the instruments to hand and when Basil is able to contribute his backing vocals.

Once gain, the new songs came across just as strongly as the old favourites. The only downside is that I'm now very impatient for the band to be signed to a new label and arrange a release date for the the Helping Hands LP.

There were a couple of genuinely stunning moments - the extended introduction to I Know Who You Could Be, the bit about halfway through When I'm Asleep when the entire band come as close to rocking out as they ever do, the second half of Helping Hands when John delivers a love letter to Glasgow and Glaswegians and all of This Kiss Will Marry Us. But the closing instrumental Every Other Saturday was truly majestic. I swear that even the toddlers kept quiet throughout....

As I said earlier, this wasn't a flawless performance. There were one or two nerves showing, possibly because loads of family members were in the audience, and its clear that the band are slowly building up to what will be a huge gig for them on 21 December when they open for Belle and Sebastian at Glasgow Barrowlands. They've one more rehearsal for that next weekend and then it really is game on. But they really have nothing to worry about. Butcher Boy are a band coming to the very top of their game and they are going to be mesmerising on 21 December.

Yesterday was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I'm just glad my football match was called off due to the bad weather so that I could make it along. It would have been a tough call otherwise...

mp3 : Butcher Boy - I Know Who You Could Be
mp3 : Butcher Boy - Girls Make Me Sick
mp3 : Butcher Boy - A Better Ghost

Oh and a big thanks to Robert for allowing one of Comrade Colin's boys a shot on his bass guitar after if was all over and done with and then for handing the two youngest boys free plectrums. It really made their day. Talking of Robert, here's some footage shot by his dad back in the 60s to which a demo version of Every Other Saturday has been added:-



Beautiful stuff.

PS:

Beautiful stuff (2) is this review of the gig over at Colin's place.