Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Queens Hall, Edinburgh, 28th Sept 2014

Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Everyone will have probably heard Sophie's earlier works from her days as a disco diva. You will definitely know Murder on the Dance Floor, but there are about 4 or 5 other tracks from the late 1990's/early 2000s that you will have tapped your toe to on Radio 2, or if you're old enough, strutted your stuff to, on the dance floor - e.g. her cover of Cher's "Take Me Home"

There have been a number of collaborations and albums since that time, which I have to confess I have not really heard in detail, but the release of Wanderlust in Jan 2014 definitely did catch my ear. All the songs on the Wanderlust album were co-written by Ed Harcourt, who also produced the album, and his input has been beneficial in my humble opinion.

At the allotted time (21:00 ish) the band took their places, the packed Queen's Hall audience went wild as Sophie skipped on, dressed in red (matching the initial lighting). She said "Hi Edinburgh" and went on to talk about enjoying her previous Scottish gig at Oran Mor earlier this year. Many of the die-hard fans at the front had been there too, and cheered enthusiastically. 

The band launched into Birth Of An Empire, an eastern sounding film-score-sort-of-song. The vocals were good, and the keyboards and twin violins made this a great opener.
Until the Stars Collide was next, highlighting just how good Sophie's vocals are live. 

In the next break, Ellis-Bextor took time to chat about life on the tour bus (a very large dark-windowed vehicle parked just outside the Queen's Hall) and the previous night's drink fuelled conga injury to Ed Harcourt. He raised his hand and smiled sheepishly.
She also made a self depreciating reference to her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing and said that her stage moves had not improved despite intensive training last year. 

In fact, she worked the stage very well, always quirky and flirty, keeping the crowd entertained, moving very confidently and providing excellent vocals throughout. 

Runaway Daydreamer, The Deer And The Wolf and Young Blood that followed were all considerably better than the album versions, and When The Storm Has Blown Over was simply beautiful. You could see why Sophie and this group line-up had won Best Live Act prize at the AIM Awards in Sept 2014.

The crowd were then given the opportunity to choose between a Britpop or 80s cover. The choices were:  Do You Remember the First Time? (Pulp) or True Faith (New Order). There was no contest in the mind of the audience, and the version of True Faith they performed was really excellent - I wish there was some web footage to share here.

Another cover, this time an Ed Harcourt track from his album Lustre provided an opportunity for Ed to take lead vocals with Sophie backing him. 

A seriously rocking version of 13 Little Dolls had the crowd bouncing, followed by Love Is A Camera and Cry To The Beat Of The Band, this completed the first set. Sophie dashed off, the band played on to complete "Beat Of The Band", and then they too retired.

Disco Negligee

They all returned after much audience noise. Sophie had slipped into "something more comfortable" (a disco negligee I think) and gave us a fabulous rolling medley of all the disco hits ending with "Murder".  The Queen's Hall was jumping and sweaty hot, especially at the front of the stage. Finally they came to a finish and both Sophie and Ed dashed off stage, while the rest of the band took the tumultuous applause.

But still no house lights. Would there be another encore?

Sophie and Ed unplugged

Suddenly there was cheer from further back in the hall, and there were Ed and Sophie standing in the middle of the crowd, at the mixing desk, on a raised platform. 

The crowd went wild, but eventually quietened down after much shushing, as Ed strummed the guitar and Sophie began to sing Interlude:
It's clearly plain to see
The sun is breaking through the clouds
I'm falling through a dream

You could have heard a pin drop (with the exception of the drunken muppet next to me who felt the need to scream "We love you Sophie" half way through the song. 

Surprisingly excellent gig (well it was for me, as I'd never seen Ms Ellis-Bextor perform live before) and the adoring audience left at speed to be first in line at the merchandise stall, where Sophie had offered earlier to give kisses and sign anything we wanted. Glorious night.

Band:
Sophie Ellis-Bextor – vocals
Seton Daunt – guitar
Ed Harcourt – backing vocals, guitar, keyboards
Richard Jones – bass
Gita Langley – violin
Rosie Langley – violin 

Set-list:
Birth Of An Empire
Until The Stars Collide
Runaway Daydreamer
The Deer And The Wolf
Young Blood
When The Storm Has Blown Over
True Faith (New Order cover)
Wrong Side Of The Sun
When the Lost Don't Want to Be Found (Ed Harcourt cover)
13 Little Dolls
Love Is A Camera
Cry To The Beat Of The Band
----- encore ----
Take Me Home 
Lady (Hear Me Tonight)
Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)
Sing It Back
Heartbreak (Make Me A Dancer)
Murder On The Dancefloor
--- final track ---
Interlude (Acoustic Sophie and Ed)

Ella The Bird 

The support was Ella The Bird  - the new alter-ego of Siobhan Wilson, and having seen her perform a couple of times before, I was looking forward to her set. 
She came on quietly, and proceeded to bring a hush to the Queen's Hall.

Ella The Bird (formerly known as Siobhan Wilson)

The first half of her 6 song set was performed at the keyboard, including a lovely heart-breaking version of Joni Mitchell's Case Of You.
Her gentle voice, breathy and intimate, soared at times to bring smiles of delight from the audience.
She then picked up her guitar for the remainder and finished off with the crowd pleasing favourite All Dressed Up. 


Need more info on the full setlist

Kid Canaveral and Edwyn Collins

Kid Canaveral's Christmas Baubles IV

In September Mandy got two tickets to the fourth Kid Canaveral's Christmas Baubles event on the 14th December 2013.

Details here: http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/music/kid-canaveral-count-down-festival-in-portobello-1-3231803

This time the headline act was Edwyn Collins, ex Orange Juice front-man, probably best known for his post Orange Juice hit "A Girl Like You". Nostalgists click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYFz4pKclyA


So the tickets were put away safely, but as the date approached there was a cloud on the horizon - Mandy's Mum Ivy was going through a tough time in and out of hospital, and Mandy was spending a lot of time down in South London. The week before the gig, it looked like Ivy was not going to make it through Christmas, so Mandy had to abandon her ticket and fly south again for 10 days.

Fortunately Ivy did improve, and is now in a nursing home, but this meant that Duncan was drafted in to use the spare ticket on the 14th Dec.


The day kicked off at 14:30 in Portobello Town Hall, a lovely little venue down by the seaside (opened in 1914) that holds about 550-600 people.

Porty Town Hall

There was a make-shift bar at the back, under the balcony, selling yer basic cans of various beers, and a couple of long tables opposite selling various pastries from the local bakers Fisher and Donaldson.

First act on was Siobhan Wilson from Glasgow. Unexpectedly good writing and a some haunting songs. Well worth a listen here:  http://siobhanwilson.bandcamp.com/

Siobhan Wilson

Next up was Rozi Plain,originally from Winchester. She was skilfully backed by some members of the band EagleOwl. Rozi was quirky, very entertaining and again some really good song-writing. Example here: https://soundcloud.com/folk-radio-uk/rozi-plain-humans

This Many Boyfriends

Leeds indie band This Many Boyfriends were on next. A kinda punk-pop outfit, they cranked things up and added a happy burst of adrenaline. They definitely have potential, but their set was marred by poor sound. Need to review some of their material on-line for a better review I think.

Last in the pre-break set was The Pictish Trail. Johnny Lynch is the man who runs Lost Map Records (co-host of the Xmas Baubles IV event along with Kid Canaveral) and performs under the pseudonym The Pictish Trail. On this occasion he was backed by the heavy-metal band Massacre Cave (named after the geological feature on the island of Eigg). The combination of Johnny's songs and the quality of Massacre Cave's backing was really excellent - they sounded like they'd all been playing together for years.

Pictish Trail

Johnny, still wearing his Lost Map Records bobble hat, finished up his set with a hilarious solo version of the popular Christmas carol, Little Donkey. Sadly no web footage appears to exist thus far :-)

There was a 75 minute break for beer and some food, so braving the winter stormy weather, headed out to the local fast fooderies for a pizza, grabbed a beer on the way back (Duncan was asked for ID - lol) and settled into our seats for part 2 of Christmas Baubles IV.

Kicking off part 2 was Glasgow three-piece Tuff Love. New to us both, they were quite impressive and started things off nicely.

Tuff Love

Next up was newly reformed De Rosa. Originally from Bellshill, De Rosa released a couple of albums in 2006-2009 before breaking up in mid 2009. They recently re-formed and this was their first outing in a long time. It didn't show though, they were slick and well rehearsed. Though Martin Henry did say at one point "F*ck I'm getting to old for this. Is there anyone else out there who's baldy, bearded and wears glasses?" to which a large proportion of the audience, who were probably ages with Edwyn Collins, cheered and put their hands up!

De Rosa

Co-hosts Kid Canaveral were on next and they were GREAT. Originally St Andrews based, they now hail from Edinburgh and have been hosting the Christmas Baubles events for four years in various venues around Scotland.

The Kids

They were a joy to watch and listen to. David MacGregor is the ideal front man and lead vocalist, keeping the crowd going in between songs, hitting all the right notes and cranking out some lovely rhythm and lead guitar. Kate Lazda on backing (and sometimes lead) vocals is the guitar-riff-queen for almost all the tracks. I think the dancing started about track two of their set. Tracks which were particularly good were: the Wrench, You Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night, And Another Thing!! and many more. The audience were well pleased. The Cairn String Quartet joined them for the next track “This is our Christmas song,” David MacGregor explained, apparently getting into the seasonal spirit before saying “It’s not really a Christmas song. It’s about how sh*te it is to be Scottish between the months of September and March.” The track was Low Winter Sun. With the Cairn String Quartet the song sounded really full, and with their backing on several other tracks they added a real depth to the KC set list. They're on the right in the picture below.

(Duncan and Scott can be seen in the picture above - edge of the left-hand balcony just above the stage)

Finally, after extensive stage resetting, it was time for Mr Edwyn Collins. His band came on, and plugged in, checking monitors and levels, then The Man himself. Walking with a cane he gingerly made his way to an amp placed middle stage and sat down on it, to massive cheers from the crowd. This next bit is unashamedly plagiarised from the gig review in the Independent. "It becomes impossible, as the concert goes on, to separate an appraisal of Edwyn Collins’ performance from the sheer emotional weight of seeing him before us. Eight years ago, as has been well documented, the sometime singer of arch ‘80s Glasgow indie-pop group Orange Juice very nearly died following two brain haemorrhages and an infection picked up during his treatment. Now the fact that what he’s been through is still apparent in his demeanour only adds to the joy. His speech and movements are hesitant, and he walks with a cane, but he performs with a smile on his face and his signature baritone is as rich and sonorous as ever."

Perched on his amp-come-seat, he opened with versions of Orange Juice’s Falling and Laughing and the sax-laden What Presence?!, before guiding us on a tour through the easy-crooned jangle of his mid-career solo years, from the ‘90s’ Make Me Feel Again to the recent 31 Years. “All of these are goodies, yes?” he enquired at one point. That the answer was from the audience was "Yes!" and when he and his excellent band moved onto Rip It Up, A Girl Like You and Blue Boy the Portobello Town Hall balcony emptied and everyone was down on the dance floor giving it their all.

Edwyn and band

The Baubles IV finished at about 12:30am and the crowd left in high spirits. 

“Christmas Baubles started because we wanted to have a Christmas party and get lots of bands we liked to play,” says Kid Kate Lazda. “Luckily everyone who came along seemed to enjoy it too. Even after the first year it immediately seemed like something that almost had to happen every Christmas from then on. We’re keen to stick to the original concept – a relaxed party in our home town, and hopefully a celebratory end to a successful year. It’s the one thing that people ask us about all year round, I don’t think there’s any way we could not do it now.”

(Some pictures courtesy of manicpopthrills, Stephanie Gibson and Darren Carle)