It was the Pop!South Weekender in Glasgow this weekend just gone, apparently the last one EVER. I have played there TWICE before, once with Mr S Hewitt in 2014 and then last year with The Validators, and both times it has been BLOODY GRATE - lovely organisers, lovely audience, lovely venue, fantastic city. What more could you ask for eh?
I was a bit sad not to be there for this final one, especially on the Sunday when they had not one but TWO awesome chums - Mr P Green and Mr G Osborn - playing, along with A New International, who are one of those bands where everybody who sees them (including me) goes "Cor! They were good!" If it had been a bit less MILES away I would have gone (flipping Scotland with its insistence of taking HOURS for me to get there) but I assured myself that I would at least be able to enjoy PARTS of it, via twitter (with people going on about A New International, as predicted) and indeed The YouTube, where some kindly soul has uploaded the below video:
This is Gav doing his AMAZING version of It Only Works Before You're Here. I've heard the RECORDED version (on my TRIBUTE album hem hem) but I don't think I've ever seen him play it live, largely because USUALLY when I see him play I'm ALSO playing and will thus tend to be doing this song myself. I would very MUCH like to see it sometime though, as even over the interweb it made me feel all AGLOW. Many years ago, when I first started playing solo gigs, I wrote a LIST of things I would like to happen, and near the top (below "be on the radio" and above "produce someone else's record") was "hear someone cover one of my songs". This has happened a FEW times over the years (NB though not enough - KANYE! Get ON it!) and it always makes me VERY happy, especially when it's as GORGEOUS a version as this.
The only thing Gav gets WRONG is that he doesn't have some people doing the "La la la" bit in the middle section which would put him off so he gets the words wrong and has to do the whole section again. That's the best bit, surely!
