"...How do I know you feel it? How do I know it's true? ..."

[rhythmaning]

I am not a huge fan of the Blue Nile; but enough people I know are. After years of badgering, I bought two Blue Nile CDs earlier this year; and following what I think was the best review of a concert I have read, of Paul Buchanan's gig in London earlier in the year, I thought I would try out his gig in Edinburgh.

This wasn't billed as a Blue Nile gig - it was more like Paul Buchanan plays the music of the Blue Nile - but since Buchanan is the front man, and the bass player, Robert Bell, was also out of the Blue Nile - so this was a band containing two thirds of the Blue Nile (and I reckon that the drummer played on the deeply ironic Happiness, too - either way, the crowd greeted him like a long lost friend) - so it was essentially the Blue Nile.

The Blue Nile are anything but prolific: four albums in twenty years; a tour every ten years - what do these guys do the rest of the time? But they do produce really, really beautiful songs - full of that west coast yearning (that's west coast Scotland, mind): love, loss - they produce the soundtrack to every day lives.

This was a great gig. The sound was excellent - every note was clear, and every word stood out. It was Buchanan's night - he was spotlit whilst the rest of the band were left in semi-darkness. He had a great rapport with the audience - not quite a home crowd, but as near as (Buchanan played Glasgow back in May; this time, he was playing the other Scottish cities). Early on, someone shouted out "Do you think we could do this a bit more regularly?", he replied, "Yeah, we'll come around to your house tomorrow night!"

"We're going to play all our hits tonight," he said after the first number, "it'll be a short gig!" Buchanan had a very good rapport with the audience, relaxed despite having a bit of a cold - he kept having to blow his nose between songs. His voice was plangent, singing the plaintive lyrics of despondency and disaffection.

The songs came across even better live than they do on disk, in contrast to most live performances. This was more than a little bit down to the audience: it is hard to be alienated when you are sitting there with two thousand other people, all there for the same reason; by oneself, the Blue Nile can sound depressing; in a crowd, although the songs are the same, and the emotions the same, sharing them turned it into a joyous occasion.

[Edit] The sound was spacious and minimal, like the records - a sparse emptiness.

The crowd sang along to Tinseltown in the Rain, providing Buchanan with the refrain: “Do I love you?” he sang, and they replied, “Yes I love you.” And they did.

Truly wonderful.

Comments

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

If you're interested, they played the same set as London last week - as far as I could tell... http://www.noblepr.co.uk/Press_Releases/blue_nile/paul_buchanan.htm
...finishing off with Sinatra's "Stranger's in the Night" - Buchanan even did the doobie-doos.