Last week was an absolute belter, and a huge crowd turned up to check out another glorious triple. It was a bout of quite epic proportions as three of the finest live acts on the Scottish circuit did battle for supremacy with a left hook – Mitchell Museum, a right hook – Y’all Is Fantaasy Island, and finally a quite devastating upper cut – Meursault (thanks to JP for the great metaphor). It was one of those occasions when the room seemed to fill up as soon as the doors opened and people just kept flowing in as the night progressed. It was great to see lots of our Limbo stalwarts and regulars there plus many, unfamiliar new faces.
Mitchell Museum are first on and they really seem to know how to enjoy themselves on stage. Their banter is quite hilariously unscripted, to say the least. They don’t seem to take themselves at all seriously, with that characteristically Glaswegian, self-deprecting sense of humour colouring much of the interim ‘skits’ and an absence of any kind of artifice adding up to what’s actually some quite clever stage-craft really, as they segue eccentrically between songs – the bad jokes and clowning ingratiating them very quickly to the crowd and helping everyone to relax. They’ve got some great songs, too. We probably say this quite a lot, but it’s honestly not that often that we get a band on whose songs seep into your unconsciousness quite as effectively as the ‘ear worms’ (that’s what they call hits in Germany, by the way) produced by this lot. The music Mitchell Museum make is riotously fun-loving – a lysergic jaunt down richly orchestrated paths, coloured by jubilant fanfares – and they go down very well.
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There’s a short interval, while Y’all Is Fantasy Island get tuned up. Once they get going, they ignite in a quite epic fashion (actually, the big Eighties rock motifs they launch into at the start suddenly remind me of U2, but I’m not sure they’d thank me for saying that), the projector screen behind them lighting up simultaneously, as DC launches some vintage eastern European animations. YIFI then go a bit a proggy, with occasional flourishes provided by those Eighties riffs, and then drop what’s surely Adam Stafford’s homage to Kurt Cobain, Punk Rock Disco, with its chorus (we’re all selling out, we’re all selling out). This also sounds like a bit of a hit and, hey, we’re just about due a grunge revival so why not? The Nirvana front-man doesn’t stick around for long, but while there’s obviously a debt owed to the Nineties legend, Stafford’s lyrics are just as affecting and his band are such a tight outfit these days. They mine a rich seam of their own seam via the dead singer’s heritage which will surely lead them to stand up on their own merits as their audience swells and confidence grows accordingly.
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The biggest reception of the evening is reserved for Edinburgh headliners Meursault, however, who later seem quite bowled over by the reaction they have engendered in this well-lubricated crowd. The announcement of every song’s title gets a resounding, lairy cheer from the audience, which makes it very obvious just how many people have already bought the CD and think it’s great. The band consequently soars and swoops for their half hour on stage, from all-out assaults on banjo, ukelele, laptop and cahon, to a quieter moment where Fraser, Chris and Calum all provide backing vox and hand-clap accompaniment to singer-songwriter Neil Pennycook’s lead on banjo. Neil also unveils his beautiful, new harmonium and there’s a new song too. But, with all the tuning up both supports have required, time has run away with us slightly and Meursault deliver a slightly shorter set than they might have planned. When Neil politely asks if they’ve got time for one more, with an inquiring look to the booth at the back of the room, the rest of the room answers his question for us, which great, because they’ve almost forgotten to play their peice de resistance, the title track from their debut album, Pissing On Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues. We get a very particular live rendition of this, with a funny break in the middle, as Neil tells Fraser to stop the sampler (and for a minute i think he’s going to tell him to ‘rewind, my selectah’). But, actually, they just kick off again and everyone cheers. It’s a great cap to the night and demonstrates just how far Meursault have come in this last year or so. Good luck to all of them on their debut UK tour.
Meursault, Y’all Is Fantasy Island and Mitchell Museum pictures by David Forcier.
