“The atmosphere at the gig had the undeniable feel of a homecoming…”

Roddy Frame recently returned to Glasgow, to play to a packed audience in Glasgow’s 02 ABC.  Guest blogger Breda Doherty reviews the performance of an artist who appreciates becoming a success by doing what he loves.

The 02 was a fitting choice given that the East Kilbride native first opened the venue back in 2005. With Frame’s sporadic touring and now being based in London, the atmosphere at the gig had the undeniable feel of a homecoming. It’s always a special experience to see an artist play in front of a home-town crowd and for most it’s an opportunity to acknowledge where they have come from and give thanks to their early supporters.

Frame opened with The Crying Scene, one of my favourite Aztec Camera tracks from the ‘groups’ third album Stray. That album didn’t feature greatly in the set-list with songs from Aztec Camera’s debut release, High Land, Hard Rain and most commercially successful album, Love making the most appearances; an astute choice chimed with the audience’s warm reception. Given its familiar imagery and an anthemic quality which would have seen lighters held aloft if not for the smoking ban, Killermont Street from the latter album resulted in the most excitement from fans. We Could Send Letters from High Land, Hard Rain was also a crowd pleaser and even resulted in some punching of the air!

The majority of the audience seemed to be made-up of fans who have followed Frame’s career from the start with a lack of younger faces in the crowd; hopefully not an indication that his music has been missed by this generation.

It’s not hard to see why Frame inspires this level of dedication; in person he comes across as down to earth and appreciative that he’s managed to carve out a successful and long-term career doing what he loves. He shared anecdotes explaining the addition of a full-time band, suggesting it all started because of his good friend Edwyn Collins. Frame poked fun at his spare solo offerings in recent years. But a new track called White Pony, supposedly inspired by Director John Hughes showed that he’s still thankfully writing and recording. The crowd’s assurance that the song was keeper shows there is still demand for him to produce new material.

His talent, not only as the songwriter behind some of the most defining Scottish pop tracks but as an extremely proficient guitar player, was reflected in his ease when switching from electric to acoustic guitar throughout the gig.

Throughout his career, Frame has pushed himself to experiment with different music genres with Walk Out to Winter a stand-out example of a successful infusion of jazz with a more guitar pop sensibility. Admirably, he’s also not tried to create carbon copy ‘big hits’ to emulate the massive chart success of the singles which featured on Love.

Somewhere in your Heart the biggest hit of these was, somewhat predictably, the gig closer but there was no sense of Frame allowing the song to own him or his discography which is often the case when an artist has such a popular and loved track in their repertoire.  When the crowd took over on lead vocals, it was great to see an artist appreciate that their music has not only earmarked a specific time in the lives of their fans but  continues to soundtrack both old and new experiences.

Ed: We’ll be returning to 02, it’s one of the great venues on Glasgow Music Tour which is launching during Celtic Connections in January. Meanwhile, we would love to hear your stories of the gigs, bands and venues that make Glasgow’s music scene.