Life is a learning experience. Put yourself in Ivory Blacks on a Friday night and you will find out many things. For example, rawk chicks – yes, they still make them – drink lager and smell, oh so sweetly, of Hugo Boss and the dress code popularised by Wayne’s World all those years ago is still, it would seem, de rigeur for attendees at a rock concert.
The King Lot made me think. It would have been easy to dismiss them as an example of the kind of good natured hard rock band that has always grown abundantly in the soil of Scotland but that would be to deny their obvious and notable proficiency in matters musical. These three good gentlemen played like a fighting unit should and threw in a surprising amount of melody just to ensure that you could take their songs home with you.
And then there was Kobra and the Lotus. With a cornucopia of ferocious metal riffs delivered in a manner that was surely designed to conquer the clichés of the genre, this Canadian band set off in a truly theatrical direction with the greatest impact being achieved, remarkably, when the tempo slowed. This was a performance, nothing less, and the feral beauty and fearsome voice of Kobra Paige provided the focus for an audience that righteously called the band back for an encore.
Pausing only to wonder if there would perhaps be a prize for having the best hair on stage, it was time for escape manoeuvre number one. Turn left and run for there are always more questions than answers in the land of the sartorially challenged rock fan.