Edinburgh

So, on the Sunday, I took a crammed train to Edinburgh listening to Mogwai and reading Lenin. By the time I got to Edinburgh I had a bad throat and was losing my voice. Elizabeth gave me food and my ticket and we all made our way to the Liquid Room. Pilotcan were playing as we arrived and the place was full so we decided to try and get into the balcony instead of being squashed at the back with no view whatsoever. While we were trying to get ourselves organised (believing, quite wrongly, that the balcony was for guest list only) Stuart appeared out of the door and came over to say hello. I grilled him about the balcony and he found out it was for anyone so I bade farewell and we found ourselves a lovely spot overlooking the stage.

Elizabeth went to get drinks while we watched the boredom that was Pilotcan - they were very uneventful and one of their songs was completely ripping off Mogwai, badly. Elizabeth returned from the bar - a girl had said to her, "What's the name of this band?". "Pilotcan", replied Elizabeth, truthfully. "I know they're a pile of crap", answered the girl, "but what are they called?". As Elizabeth despises Pilotcan she was rather pleased with this misapprehension.

Arab Strap were on next and I confess to being rather disappointed with their performance. When I saw them supporting Gene they were ramshackle, shouty and noisy. This time they played entirely new songs, all of which sounded similar: long intro, Aidan's mumbling story and then a ten minute instumental ending. We were kind of unimpressed and Aidan's beard frightened us mightily. The best bit was when they had to restart a song halfway through Aidan's rambling and he just went, "As I was saying...", and did it all again.

So, finally Mogwai. When I saw them in Manchester I thought they were perfect, they moved the goalposts so far that most people can't even see them anymore, let alone aim for them. But in Edinburgh they'd already moved on again - it was like they'd been pretending the other night and now they were going to show us what they were really made of. And I was shocked, 'cos how can you be better than perfect? But things have to keep changing - perfection's not some static thing that you can go and look at - Mogwai aren't a museum.

I suppose it being their 'home' crowd might have had something to do with it - maybe they felt they had something to prove, maybe they were raising everyones's expectations including their own. Whatever it was we were impressed. At one point, during the loud bit in 'Helicon 1' I think, Stuart was kneeling on the stage and he just leant back and put his head on the speaker and at that moment I knew that they understand about the noise.

They finished with 'Mogwai Fear Satan' and I thought it would be less exciting now that the element of surprise was gone until they left the stage and the fireworks went off. Fireworks! It made it okay that it was the end, not just of the gig but of the tour 'cos fireworks are a good ending to anything - it's right.

On the way home, everyone seemed kind of speechless. Particularly me since I had almost completely lost my voice - not that I'm trying to draw any analogy.

Glasgow >>