Monday 19 August 2013

Bands With Horns

Before I forget, a few words about the live music scene in Glasgow, which appears like a foggy memory now that I have been back to the hustle of Lagos for a few weeks. Glasgow is a town of pubs and many of them support live bands. While in Glasgow I stayed in the city centre district known as Merchant City, serendipitously the hub of the live bar band scene. There was a pub called Maggie May’s right downstairs from my hotel room with live music (where I watched a stand-up comedy show one night and confirmed that we are indeed two nations separated by a common language); on the next corner was Blackfriar's, where I saw a rockabilly band on a Tuesday night replete with lead singer in red cowboy hat.

Not all the live music in Glasgow is precisely to my taste but live music in pubs has an inherent value of its own, and Glasgow is a great place to visit if only for a sampling of one of the world’s best bar band scenes. Local music in 2013 is all the more valuable in light of today’s article in The Independent about so-called big name acts using pre-recorded backing tracks during their (well-paid) “live” performances…

My best memory of Glasgow’s bar scene came about on a night when Blackfriar’s was dark; I asked the mountainous bouncer where there might be live music and he directed me a few blocks away to McChuill’s Public House. It didn't look too promising from the outside, like just another neighborhood pub, but when I entered and turned the corner two tenor saxes and a trumpet were staring me in the face. One of the tenors was a Mexi-Conn. Bar band heaven. The group was Republic of Soul and they put down two sets that took me back to Chicago. Almost an entire set of Wilson Pickett. Wicked.

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