Celtic Connections is one of Scotland's largest music festivals and is feted with all sorts of praise for its series of live concerts so this (Canadian) immigrant was expecting nothing but the best as I ventured down to ABC1 to catch Colin Hay who was opening for Kevin McDermott.
Colin Hay came on to the stage under what is surely the world's largest spinning disco ball, and after a brief reprise of his life story and a mini stand-up comedy bit, the Scottish born but turned Australian began his show. Barely into his set, Hay played the first four bars of a song before stopping and admitting that he had completely forgotten the words! Just slightly embarrassing for the stage veteran who is better known for his stint with Australia based 80's band Men at Work. He recovered from the screw up by playing one of his former band's most famous hits "Who Can It Be Now?" Hay delivered a quite intimate performance of the song that was enjoyed by the older crowd who, from their reactions, were definitely more familiar with the aforementioned band rather than Colin's solo work. "Going Somewhere" was pleasant, and he continued to redeem himself with an excellent live version of "Overkill" (which gained significant exposure when it was featured on the television series Scrubs). I'm glad it got such exposure, definitely a great tune where the song writing skills, rustic voice and experience this guy has are all exemplified.
The set continued with "Beautiful World" which was my favourite song of the evening with great lyrics that tie together swimming in the sea, emptiness, and sleeping with Marie. Colin then moved to the twelve-string guitar for "Here in My Hometown", a song where he claims Melbourne is his hometown even though we all know he was raised in Saltcoats before moving down under. He held on to the dirty dozen for another commercial soundtrack hit, "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You" from the film "Garden State". This song of a lingering relationship is very soft and once again demonstrates his mature vocals and great lyrics that evoke his pain. His latest single "Are You Looking at Me?" came later in the show and brought the audience to life as they sang out and returned the chorus to him. Although the title sounds like the prelude to a Glasgow kiss, it is actually a confessional song that explains his life; the ups and downs of his travels around the world, his musical career, and his time spent in the spotlight. Colin Hay has definitely evolved from his eighties' rock style and has moved to a much more personal and reflective style of music capturing the life of a man who has plenty of stories to tell.
"Kevin who?!" someone yells from the back of the crowd as he applauds Colin Hay's performance. My thoughts exactly, but I chose not to voice them the same way he did. Instead you'll find them here. Few people can pull off a fully white ensemble and unfortunately Kevin McDermott isn't one of them. Decked out from head to toe, with a white suit jacket and white shoes to boot, he burst out on to the stage jumping and dancing around sporadically as his band mates played "Wise to The Fade". Don't ask me what that means, but McDermott's on stage antics tell me that at least he means what he's singing. He has his own style of showmanship and personally I found his performance to be quite hilarious at first. But humour can only camouflage bad music for so long (only The Moldy Peaches can pull that off…). I looked around to see if anyone else was digging his tunes, and to my surprise there were quite a few. Granted it was probably the same "long live the eighties" rockers who were expecting "Men at Work" as the opening act but regardless of that I was glad somebody was enjoying this circus. I hate to slag on the guy on the night of the release of his first solo album, but I just wasn't into it. Repeating the same line over and over in quite a few songs was well… repetitive. However I will give the guy credit, for when he slowed it down and performed "Voices", I was actually impressed. However, Colin Hay was definitely my favourite performer of the night, but that was who I knew, and who I went to see. I'm sure those who went to see Kevin McDermott would disagree. Oh, and McDermott's backing vocalist Blair Cowan was great too.