I went to my first gig in 1986, February 27th to be precise, to see Simple Minds on their Once Upon a Time tour. This means that Friends Again had been and gone like a fleeting shadow before I even thought about going to my first concert…
I was clearly slow on the uptake when it came to gig going (I’ve more than made up for it since) as my second ever gig was to see a certain James Grant & Paul McGeechan in their Love and Money guise play Level 8 in Strathclyde Universities students union in October of ‘86 (with Thrashing Doves supporting according to my notes, for any useless fact fans, a band whose career was probably cut short when the milk snatcher claimed to enjoy the video for their single Beautiful Imbalance on an episode of Saturday Superstore…) I developed an unhealthy obsession for the music of Love and Money the result being they were a band I went on to see too many times to mention over the years, and as such they were my gateway drug to the sublime music of Friends Again, and of course the glorious atmospheric sounds of The Bathers. Remember, this was in the days before the instant gratification of the internet, social media, online shopping, YouTube and streaming music, a time when you got all your info from the music press, TV shows (remember when TV actually cared about new music? Well music in general…and now BBC Radio Scotland are also guilty of no longer giving a shit.. shame on them…and kudos to tonight’s support act for calling them out) and of course word of mouth… so when I found out through several sources that there was life before Love and Money, I had to make it a quest to unearth their music.
Weirdly, it took a trip south of the border to track down Trapped & Unwrapped, eventually finding a second hand copy in a wee indie record shop called Tracks in Oakham when I was on holiday in Leicestershire visiting relatives… cheers cousin Graham! Not only that but they also had two 7” singles while I quickly snaffled up, Honey at the Core (1984 version) and the Friends Again EP (with no picture sleeve unfortunately). From the first listen I was hooked, and wondered, when there had been so many bands in the charts that ploughed a similar furrow, many of whom weren’t a patch on Friends Again, why hadn’t they been massive? There’s no justice sometimes…
Fast forward almost 40 years and I was about to witness the gig I’d genuinely waited a lifetime to see, with only a couple of times over the intervening years getting an opportunity to hear a couple of Friends Again songs live, once was in Paisley Abbey at a James Grant and friends gig in 2013, and again more recently as part of the encore at a gig by The Bathers in Glasgow University Union Debating Chamber. I honestly never expected the day to come that I’d see a full blown Friends Again concert and as such I had to pinch myself as it didn’t feel real, like I wouldn’t believe it was actually going to come to fruition until I actually witnessed it in the flesh and it wasn’t just a castle in the air. To say I was buzzing would be a gross understatement.
There was an air of celebratory anticipation as I walked into the Old Fruitmarket with my good friend and gig buddy Fraser, who it just so happened was a school friend of Chris and Paul, and as such he had seen the band play in 1982 in The Mayfair, though he recounts a tale fuelled by alcohol suggesting he would probably have more memory of the gig this time around.
That celebratory atmosphere was cranked up a notch as the “secret” headliner walked on stage. I say secret, but it must have been the worst kept secret going as everyone in the venue was expecting a certain troubadour to take to the stage and they were not disappointed. When the maestro Lloyd Cole took to the stage to the strains of happy birthday and resplendent in double denim (a good choice for the suave gent about town if I may say – not that I was dressed similarly of course) with his white guitar already strapped on ready for action he had a huge grin on his face. Acknowledging this was going to be a special night from a band he loved, what followed was a masterclass in songwriting as Cole, starting with the holy trinity of Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken, Perfect Skin and Forest Fire played a set of sure fire crowd pleasers. He indicated he’d selected his set from the songs he wrote in Glasgow and his 45 minute set from Rattlesnakes and Easy Pieces never strayed far from genius. Taking in the likes Rattlesnakes, Charlotte Street and Brand New Friend he wowed the packed Old Fruitmarket before closing with another holy trinity of songs, this time from Easy Pieces, in the shape of Why I Love Country Music, Cut Me Down and a brilliant version of Lost Weekend that paid a debt to The Passenger. And that was just the support act!
By the time Friends Again took to the stage my anticipation levels were through the roof, I was having palpitations that were unseemly for a man of my age, and my heart was pounding out of my chest. And boy did the band set out their stall with an indicator we were in for a rare treat as the 6 piece band, with the three original members of Chris Thomson, Paul McGeechan and James Grant joined by the supremely talented and omnipresent Douglas McIntyre on bass, drummer Stuart Kidd and guitarist Rob McLaughlin (as Chris Thomson noted, bringing the average again of the band down somewhat) launched into the opening song from Trapped and Unwrapped, Lucky Star. There must have been loads of lucky stars aligning perfectly in the sky that night, such was the perfection of that opening song, a warm glow spread over me and the beaming smile on my face widened to a grin as the realisation hit me…I was actually standing in a real venue watching this band play the songs I love but had pretty much resigned myself to never hearing live.
What followed was nothing short of life-affirming as the band played the entirety of the original version of Trapped and Unwrapped (not in chronological order I should add) interspersing the songs with a couple of B-side/EP tracks (the xxx Wand You Wave and Dealing in Silver) and with two divine cover versions. I have to say at this point that Chris Thomson’s vocal is almost otherworldly in it’s unique velvety and soulful manner, it was utterly perfect and sent shivers down my spine, and when you pair that with Grant’s wonderfully transcendent harmonies and backing vocals you’ve got a winning formula, if you were there and you weren’t touched to the very fibre of your being, you clearly have no soul.
With every song they played, I was drawn deeper in, I could have been in a room on my own as I shut out everything else and nothing else mattered but the soulful sounds emanating from the stage, every song hit the mark and then some, how can you lose with songs as smooth and incandescent as Swallows in the Rain, Vaguely Yours and Tomboy. It’s hard to pick highlights from a set like this, it’s like picking your favourite child but there was definitely a mid-set zenith when the band played a peerless South of Love before they slipped in a couple of acoustic songs in the shape pf Dealing in Silver and Moon 3.
James Grant was his usual unflappable and wryly humorous self, directing the audience in how to sing harmonies on Moon 3 (I was on the “Moon 3 has gone” side) before adding “but don’t sing before I tell you or you’ll fuck it up.” Classic Grant. He was in more reflective mood when he introduced the following song, which he said made him emotional, dedicating it to all our children before the band played a beautiful version of Bowie’s Kooks.
The home straight was packed with bona fide classics starting with a janglestastic harmony laden Lullaby No.2. Love was definitely onboard in the venue and the freewheelin’ Afrobeat tinged single went down a storm, before the laidback charm of Old Flame continued to re-ignite the passion, this is not a complaint but an observation, what would have been the icing on the cake for this song would have been the sax accompaniment to the “revolve, revolve” outro. State of Art was quite simply a work of unrivalled beauty, I’m not sure if Chris could have packed much more intense ardour into the impassioned plea in the chorus, and ending the set with a – can’t put it better than they do – sunkissed version of Sunkissed… my heart could have burst right there and then
The band took their well deserved plaudits as they left the stage, but we all knew that they still had that one last tune to play, and as they returned, with Lloyd Cole on backing vocals, the roof was well and truly raised with a vivaciously spirited romp through the brilliant Honey at the Core with the whole venue singing the chorus in unison, and Douglas McIntyre shining with the bass solo when Chris invited the audience to “get a load of this” as the song reached its joyful crescendo. I still have that soaring chorus ringing in my head 3 days on. I would have walked a thousand miles in my moonboots just to see that performance, no matter how much they may have chafed. It wasn’t quite over though, the band still had one song left in them and they finished with an uplifting cover of The O’Jays classic Love Train complete with “this train is free wheelin’” ad lib.
I freewheeled all the way home, my feet barely touching the ground as I floated on cloud nine (just South of Love, near Moon 3…) and bathed in the satisfaction of a gig that was more than worth that forty year wait. And you know that old adage about buses? You wait all that time then two come along at once, this time this most seminal of Glasgow bands will be joining the Love Train with The Bluebells (who I noted were in attendance on Saturday) as part of Summer Nights at Kelvingrove Bandstand in August… better dig out my moonboots now.