So, she looks me straight in the eye and asks me where I’ve been. I don’t actually have a believable answer so I attempt to divert her with a request for food (aka Guinness) but those azure eyes won’t ever be fooled by such feeble attempts at redirection. She counters with a right hand turn into fantasy land as she threatens to wear pink Marigolds and do housework if I tell her why it has been so long. A man has got to know when he is beat. I imply a custodial sentence and she seems happy with that.
Despite the aforementioned interrogation, I nonetheless notice that there is music of the acoustic variety providing the soundtrack to my discomfort. There’s Emma Forman – hardly a stranger to these ears – doing her sensitive singer songwriter thing. She sings sweetly and I wish I owned her publishing rights for there is always profit in heartbreak. Next on is Who Needs a Diva who do the girl vocals and boy guitar thing. Dear Melissa of the red ribbons, shoes and lipstick revs up the Adele approach to emoting whilst Alan of the guitar loses his hat somewhere along the line. I think I’ve written the plot summary to an episode of The Avengers but there you go.
Again reinforcing the notion of conventionality is Danielle. One woman and one acoustic guitar has been enough for more than a few to take the leap into identifiability and, perhaps unsurprisingly, Danielle makes a management decision and takes that safe route instead of stamping individuality on her performance. Hard to dislike for sure but perhaps also hard to love.
Colin Clyne does the headline thing to end the evening. He might well hail from Stonehaven but he has learned from his stay in the good old US of A. Devoid of the Gitmo blues, he confidently asserts his new songs as successors to his old songs that you might remember from his album “Doricana” even if – perhaps anticipating the audience’s memory lapse – he flies the flag of familiarity by wounding “Wonderwall”.
Pink Marigolds induce desire. It is a scientific fact. Fearing imminent arrest, I focus that desire into fried food. Cholesterol or prison. It’s a lifestyle choice.