Guinness. Not only can you drink it but you can also make cake with it. This is truly the work of God Herself. What further proof of the existence of a deity would a man need now that he has tasted Guinness cake? It’s not just my opinion either as brother of the chef at Pivo Pivo happened to be at the bar and quickly volunteered his own version (with frosted icing) to compete with my (stem ginger encrusted) version. She of the bar looked at us with the disdain of one who already knew that a man’s place was in the kitchen.
On to matters less spiritual, or at least slightly less spiritual, for we are talking about the voice of Iona Marshall here. Tonight she was without her usual array of looping electric toys and instead used the acoustic guitar to accompany herself on a charming, verging on entrancing, set of folk flavoured songs. She has a voice that you could listen to all night long. That, my friends, is a simple fact.
Shauna Joy went for a more direct approach with a voice that punched well above her weight, so to speak. Alternating between keyboards and guitar (and with two guys to make up a musical threesome), she sang the songs of a singer songwriter with the voice of a rock goddess. I wouldn’t go as far as calling her raunchy but that was the street that she walked along.
The return of Gillian Christie. Not the title of a film but more a reflection of the fact that there are certain faces that seem to regularly appear on the stages of Glasgow and Ms Christie is one of them. As the writer of emotionally intense songs with a jagged edge, she easily makes the grade even if her voice did seem too sweet to make the words real.
The last lady of the night was Ashleigh Moyes and she also got the loudest applause of the night. Again an acoustic guitar and a sweet voice was the name of the game but this time an underlying, rather dry, sense of humour seasoned her songs thus providing, in marketing terms, her unique selling point.
The night, alas, was over but I shall return as I have it on good authority that there will be something containing Guinness waiting for me behind the bar.