The Proclaimers – playing the Virgin Radio VIP tent, by James Cridland on Flickr
A week ago I blogged about seeing 3 gigs in 5 days. Not a spectacular challenge I know, but quite impressive for my non existent social life.
Those 5 days have been and gone and here’s the 2nd of those 3 bands.
For the record, going to see the Proclaimers was a work related freebie. Record companies let you do that every now and again. They try to keep you sweet. They hope that in turn you will promote their bands by playing their tracks on the radio, despite the fact I have no say in what I play at all. If you are a promoter at a record company, ignore that last sentence entirely.
I’m telling you about the freebie because the Proclaimers were never a band I’d pay to see live. I only know 3 or 4 of their songs properly, and I always feel they’ve had a slightly cheesy stigma attached to them. But hey ho, the gig was free and we duly went along.
What a fantastic show it was. If I had known how good it was going to be, I’d have easily paid the £30 ticket price. Gig goers of all ages were there. From young 5 year old children right up to grandparents pushing 80.
So maybe their stage presence isn’t quite up their with what Liam and Noel once had. Their in between song banter wasn’t the strongest, it mainly consisted of birthday dedications like you’d expect to hear on BBC local radio. And their introduction of songs went something along the lines of: “This is a song about coming home, and being about 3 days away”, and they’d then start playing their new song 3 Days From Home.
But that aside, the crowd bopping to “500 Miles” and “I’m On My Way”, and the almost anthemic singing to “Sunshine on Leith” made up for it.
I probably wouldn’t make the point of going to see the Proclaimers again. Once, all be it a good experience, was probably enough for me. But if you’ve never seen the Proclaimers, and you get the chance to go see them, I would whole heartedly recommend it.
