Steven Lindsay, The Poetry Club, Glasgow

Steven Lindsay concerts aren’t quite as rare as a solar eclipse but it can sometimes feel that way. So when I received an email intimating that he would be playing The Poetry Club in Glasgow on August 13^th, booking a couple of tickets was a no-brainer.

One of those tickets was for my good friend Glenn MacDiarmid, owner of this website and a man who loves his music, particularly that of Steven Lindsay. As Glenn lives in the USA, an unscheduled trip to Scotland to attend a gig is no small undertaking, and he hesitated for what must have been at least 15 seconds before booking return flights from Washington DC.

The stage was thus set for what Steven Lindsay himself described as ‘the hottest ticket since Oasis’. Okay, he meant the Oasis pub in Castlemilk but the point nevertheless stands.

Having entered using the emergency exit – yes, space inside the venue was at that much of a premium – to rapturous applause, Steven Lindsay and Stuart McCredie took to the stage, Steven taking up station at his electric piano and Stuart strapping on the electric guitar that he would play throughout the concert.

As Steven and Stuart had previously worked together on Steven’s Interlopers project, it was fitting that the set opened with Turn Out The Light from the Interlopers album. This was followed by A Prayer for the Disenfranchised from Steven’s recent Chords and Colours album, the first of five tracks lifted from that record. From there, it was back to 2022 and a song born out of the COVID pandemic, Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again, after which the shuttling between 2022 and 2026 was completed by another song from Colours and Chords, Fall of the Empire.

So far so very blooming good. But even better was to follow.

The next song saw Steven switch from piano to acoustic guitar and take us back to the mid-1980s, a time when The Big Dish seemed destined to become the Next Big Thing. That song was Slide, a much-loved track from The Big Dish’s accomplished debut album, Swimmer. But rather than give us a rendition of Slide as it appeared on the album, the version now presented was, said the man himself, modelled on the band’s original demo of the song, with percussion supplied – now as then – by a drum machine. And mighty fine it was.

A quick trip back to the present day yielded an excellent version of Elsewhere, the first single from Chords and Colours. Next up was a return to the 1980s and Where Do You Live, a song from The Big Dish’s superb second album, Creeping up on Jesus. Co-written by Steven and Paul ‘Wix’ Wickens, who later became Paul McCartney’s Musical Director (nice work if you can get it), it sounded fresh and vibrant nearly four decades on.

For his next trick, Steven switched back to piano and set the controls on his musical time machine to 2004 and a fine version of Breakdown, one of the standout tracks on his first solo album, Exit Music. It was followed by Dark Waters, a brooding, atmospheric track from Chords and Colours.

So far we’d had songs from three decades, and now it was time for a trip back to the nineties. That could only mean one thing: it was time for Miss America, a crowd favourite that continues to induce much head-scratching as to why it only just sneaked into the UK top 40 on its release in 1991.

The arpeggiated guitar that is a signature of Miss America was originally conceived and performed by Brian McFie, who played guitar and sang backing vocals on all three of The Big Dish’s albums. Tragically, Brian passed away suddenly in June of this year. Many words have been committed to print about the man and the  significant contribution he made to each of the sibling worlds of music and art, but perhaps the most fitting and emotional tribute of all came when Steven dedicated Waiting for the Parade, a song he had co-written with Brian, to the memory of his friend and former bandmate. As Steven’s heartfelt rendition of the song ended with him pointing to the heavens and uttering the words ‘for Brian’, a single white feather fell gently from the ceiling to the stage. Whether by design or happenstance, it was a beautifully poignant moment.

Two tracks from Colours and Chords, Emergency Belief System and A Scant Refuge from the Coming Storm, the latter played as an encore, brought the concert to an end. As with the other tracks from Colours and Chords, the live elements of the performance introduced a rawer edge to already fine songs, breathing additional life – and, dare one say, colour –  into their chords.

And that was that. Steven’s first concert in nearly four years. So what did I think of it?

Let’s talk about the ticket price first. In an inflationary era, much credit must be given  for keeping the ticket price down a more than reasonable (for which read ‘bargain’) £25.

By his own admission, Steven has always been a reluctant frontman, but this was the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him on stage. He and Stuart McCredie, whose guitar work and backing vocals were excellent, enjoyed a warm on-stage rapport. 

Steven’s voice – correction, Steven’s majestic voice – has defied time in a manner that causes me to wonder if he has a forty year-old cassette of his singing voice stashed away in the attic. Come to think of it, he also looks pretty well-preserved for a man who’s not on his first lap of the block. Hmmm, could there be a self-portrait tucked away in his loft too?

I had some pre-gig reservations about the size of the venue. Well, it turned out to be cramped and hot, but on this night, for this artist and those songs, it was perfect.

It all added up to a gig that can be described in one word: special.

That leaves one question to address: will Steven treat us to some more concerts? In the words of Oasis, the band this time, the answer is, as ever, ‘definitely maybe’.