Live Reviews


  Junebug, Melody Says, Heather Young and James Morgan live at Broadcast in Glasgow



Monday’s alright for something although I’m not quite sure what but since I ended up downstairs at Broadcast with Junebug, Melody Says, Heather Young and James Morgan then I must assume that God, once again, had a plan that involved me putting pen to paper.

James Morgan is one man and his guitar and he sings song made of words that seem far older than his years on the planet would suggest. His relaxed manner and obvious proficiency would make him well suited to the role of a folk troubadour but, as many have found before him, having the talent is not enough to make it so.

To call Heather Young a caricature of the ideal up and coming folk singer of the acoustic style would be to do her a great disservice although I hazard a guess there are many out there who would wish it were so. Her voice, as sweet and clear as you might wish a voice to be, was nothing less than entrancing and her fluency on the acoustic guitar was also notable. Her songs were written by a hand that had escaped the traps of the past and instead displayed a sensitivity for the finer points of existence. In short, it took no more than a short set of those things to become convinced that her spot on the stage of life would be guaranteed.

And then there was Melody Says. Being genuinely French, she lacked neither Gallic charm nor humour – right up to professing a love for Scotland’s beloved rust dissolver Irn Bru - and easily romped through a set of alternately bouncy yé-yé style and downright dark acoustic songs that were delivered with the kind of suspiciously good nature that would suggest greater forces, or perhaps simply unstoppable ambition, were at work.

Junebug, usually seen as pop rock fivesome, stripped themselves down to three and set about providing evidence that it is all in the song and that they have plenty of them. Even in acoustic mode, their spirit was never less than strong and, with infectious enthusiasm and spirited vocals on their side, they powered their way to the finish line pausing only to congratulate the spontaneous dancers in the audience. Getting any Glasgow audience to spontaneously dance is a most unusual event, by the way. Especially on a Monday night.

That’s Monday out of the way. The raven tells me that white guys can’t dance, the cat’s in the cradle and the sun always shines even when you think it doesn’t. Listen carefully and you will also hear the clock strike twelve.



Reviewer:
Review Date: November 3 2014


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