Mick Lynch posted on August 22, 2007 04:20
The Proclaimers, Katie Melua & others live
The CLUAS Verdict? 8 out of 10
Full review:
A 1:00pm start on Sunday was always going to be tough on he opening act, and Nizlopi drew the short straw. To be fair to John & Luke, they put in a professional performance in front of a handful of people, who like me all just wanted to hear the ‘JCB Song’.
Sandi Thom rocked the place with a cover of ‘Proud Mary’ while telling the crowed that it was her 26th Birthday the previous day. She saved the singles ‘What If I’m Right’ and ‘I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker’ till the end, but the only criticism that took the gloss off her performance, was her refusal to sign an autograph for two fans who’d made themselves visible to her afterwards. Despite been 20 feet away, she turned and walked the other way.
Duhks were a lot more accessible, and as the evening wore on Flook and Carlos Nunez also performed on the main stage. The biggest crowd of the weekend had assembled for the penultimate act, Scotland’s favourite twins, The Proclaimers.
From their opening number ‘Letter From America’ they had the audience in their hand. We got the brilliant new single ‘Life With You’, the kiddies Shrek favourite ‘I’m On My Way’ and a fantastic overall performance that concluded with a sing-a-long of ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’.
The headline act was Katie Melua. Now I always thought she was a bit too squeaky clean for my liking, but she proved me wrong and put in a stirring performance.
She has a fantastic voice and covered a range of Blues numbers, along with covers of ‘Fancy (Bobbie Gentry) and ‘One The Road Again’ (Canned Heat). We also got the two album title tracks ‘Call Off The Search’ and ‘Piece By Piece’, the latter according to Katie, written about her relationship break-up. ‘Spiders Web’ brought out the cigarette lighters, and my personal favourite ‘Closest Thing To Crazy’ was save till the end, along with the hit ‘Nine Million Bicycles’.
A great festival with a wide range of musical genres, the weather had a major effect on the turnouts, but those of us that were there enjoyed ourselves. Perhaps more publicity is required next year as numerous people told me afterwards, they were unaware of the event.
That said, I’d be going again next year, because the organisers couldn’t do enough for us.
Mick Lynch
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