My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): The Captain's Rest, Glasgow

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I'm always a bit UNNERVED when I go to places where people are MASSIVELY proud of where they come from. It's probably because I come from Peterborough, which is absolutely NOTHING to be proud of, but it always seems strange to me when people expect you to give them additional points just because of where they come from.

Having said that, people like that DO tend to come from places that are GRATE. When I went to America, loaded down with decades of Marvel Comics and Saturday afternoon telly, I spent my entire time them having to STOP myself from SALUTING and singing the Star Spangled Banner, and similarly in Scotland you can see why they like to go on about it so much.

And go on about it they INDEED DO, especially in GLASGOW where I was for this gig. EVERYTHING seemed to be branded as Scottish. You didn't have television channels, you had SCOTTISH television channels. The Co-op wasn't just the co-op, it was The Scottish Co-Op. Political Parties, food stuffs, shopping chains, EVERYTHING had to have the word "SCOTTISH" in it - it was as if someone had recently been round accusing everybody of NOT being Scottish, and demanding that they be properly labelled if they were. I even went into a book shop and found seperate sections for "Humour" and "SCOTTISH humour".

Having spent a happy day wandering the Scottish City Centre, enjoying some Scottish Popcorn in the Scottish Cinema while watching Scottish Lost In Scottish Translation, I went back to the Scottish Hotel and packed up my suddenly rather humble feeling English Guitar to set off for the venue. The Captain's Rest isn't somewhere that appears on many major tours as it's really just an Old Man's Pub, although "just" doesn't do it sufficient justice. If you'd asked somebody to create a THEME Old Man's Pub they couldn't have done much better - everywhere you looked there were small dogs, GRUFF old men, and PIPES being dutifully smoked. It was lovely, and downstairs where the gig was was even better, as the function room had clearly been decorated in about 1978 by someone who'd watched Top Of The Pops and thought "Yeah - let's do it like THAT, but with mirrors on EVERYTHING!"

When it came time to do my set I was suddenly assaulted with the fact that, for all my astonishment of The Scottish going on about Being Scottish, i was actually JUST as guilty myself. These dates were pretty much the first time I'd EVER played outside of England and I realised that many of my songs were MASSIVELY parochial, and ended up delivering LENGTHY introductions explaining that the audience might like to view my set as WORLD MUSIC, describing events and opinions relevant to other peoples in distant lands.

After me The Hector Collectors played what would become their PENULTIMATE gig. Ian, who founded the band with Ian, was leaving and so they were going to fully disband and, though there was some joking about the matter, you could see what a big deal this was to them and their audience. Many photographs were taken, also a VIDEO, and you could see that, for everyone there, The Hectors had become a huge part of their lives.

It was lovely to see, and also VERY funny, as Adam is a CONSUMATE frontman. You can always tell a good band by how many of the non-microphoned members are singing along with the songs, and you can tell a band of PALS by how much laughing goes on between the members. There were a LOT of laughs this evening!

Afterwards I very SENSIBLY declined offers of a pub crawl, and went back to enjoy CRISPS and a BEER from the mini-bar. Next morning my sensibleness was REWARDED - the mini-bar system hadn't registered my consumption, and when I was SUPREMELY HONEST and confessed all the chap on reception let me off anyway. Free Crisps! Free Beer! THE REWARD OF THE GOOD!

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