Questions, questions, questions. What, for example, should a man of my cultural insignificance do of a Saturday night? Considering the sociological consequences of continued exposure to Carol Vorderman and her silver shoes was an option but so was becoming a part time serial killer. Something new, perhaps even something challenging, was therefore needed so off I went to the basement of the Hug and Pint to infuse myself with the worldly wonders of Kevin P Gilday & The Glasgow Cross and Becci Wallace.
Finding myself in a basement is an occupational hazard and the near baroque reinterpretation of the décor normally found in the basement of a grim northern squat would normally have been enough to disengage my cultural overdrive, However, Becci Wallace instead kept me focused on the stage. Sentiment swooped into her literate and, at times, distinctly serious lyrics with her songs having an emotional resonance that you, and I, might not have expected of a modern day Glasgow singer songwriter. Add in her endearing stage persona and even the most cynical of listeners would fail to notice the paint peeling off the walls.
Yet the masses had gathered tonight to hear the words of a man who can see what others do not care to and put them into something akin to rants that rhyme and who would then deliver said rants in a manner that could easily be mistaken for cabaret parody. It has been quite some time indeed since I last encountered Kevin P Gilday. In fact, it was so long ago that he was then without The Glasgow Cross and was just some skinny dude in a safari suit berating a typically inattentive Glasgow audience over some brutal looped beats. These days, Mr Gilday has a fifty quid haircut, a new album called “How I Won The Culture War” and is slightly wider than he once was but, I hear your ask, does the fire of discontent still burn inside him? The proof positive was “Mediocre White Man Blues” as that song left little doubt that he has enough venom in him to make even a cobra jealous. His literacy and focus on matters of today are his trademark and with the able assistance of The Glasgow Cross he had little trouble making his metaphorical square pegs fit into the round holes of reality.
It's not often that I get to describe two performers as literate yet, tonight, I could do that with clear conscience and absolute accuracy. Becci Wallace and Kevin P Gilday & The Glasgow Cross both had something to say and it would be indeed gratifying if more people would listen to their words. Anyway, saying anything nice about anybody these days gives me a fearsome appetite so off to Morellos I go for a large portion of chicken pakora. The world is officially a better place.