FEATURE: Rocking Auld Reekie

Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
June 17, 2009

Led Zeppelin, U2, AC/DC, REM (not to mention Oasis's previous visits). To be crowned 'greatest' you need to hit the high notes Oasis are the biggest act to hit Edinburgh in 2009 but the Gallagher brothers will have to pull out all the stops to match the greats that have graced the Capital's venues over the years.

As Liam and Noel prepare to take to the stage at Murrayfield tonight, Mark McLaughlin asks some of the city's most notable music fans who their contender would be for the greatest gig staged in Edinburgh . . . ever

IAN RANKIN, author

"THE best gig I ever went to was probably Tom Waits at The Playhouse in 1984.

" I'd always been a big fan of his music but had never seen him live. He put on a good show. It was real vaudeville stuff. The venue was good and the sound quality was perfect.

"I also remember a lot of really intimate, sweaty gigs I went to as a student in the early 1980s, including going to see U2 just before their first album came out at an old venue in Tollcross.

"I'd never heard of them but my mate gave me a ticket and asked me to come along, and they had a real energy about them even then. They knew their stuff from a very early age, and they had the audience eating out of their hands."

FISH, former Marillion frontman

"I went to see Genesis at the Usher Hall in April 1975, at a gig which had been rescheduled from the previous year when [guitarist] Steve Hackett sliced the tendons in his hand.

"He was at an aftershow party and rumours were already circulating that Peter Gabriel was going to leave Genesis.

"Someone mentioned that the Alex Harvey Band would be nothing without Alex Harvey, alluding to the fact that Genesis would be nothing without Gabriel, and he was so incensed he crushed a wine glass in his hand and sliced it open. They rescheduled and played an amazing gig . . . and then Gabriel left them about two weeks later."

BRUCE FINDLAY, music store owner, former Simple Minds manager

"There would be three gigs I'd put up there - all at the Usher Hall. The first was The Incredible String Band in the late 1960s. They were a really folksy band, quite whimsical and not everybody's cup of tea, even though they inspired loads of acts like the Beatles and Led Zep. They weren't big pop stars, even though they were the only Scottish band to play Woodstock.

"The second gig would be Led Zep themselves in 1969. I sold 1,000 tickets at my store but there were no seller's booking fees in those days - I was rewarded with two tickets in the second row, and it was phenomenal.

"The third would be the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. They really knew how to name their bands back then, but they really were sensational."

GRANT STOTT, broadcaster

"I used to be a programme seller at the Playhouse in the early 1980s, so I would see a different band every other day and it got the point where I was getting a bit blasé about it.

"That was until I saw AC/DC, and they blew me away. They played two nights in a row and I stood and watched them both.

"I wasn't into them at all before I saw them, but that night I could see that they weren't your usual heavy metal band standing thrashing away. Some of their songs were really melodic, and of course there was wee Angus [Young, guitarist] running around in his school uniform.

"I've seen the Proclaimers loads of times. For me their best gig - and one of the best I've been to - was during their Hit The Highway Tour around 1994. It's my favourite album so I enjoyed the songs.

"I also went to see Barry White at the Playhouse a few years earlier. He was such a great showman. I'm not normally one for dancing at gigs as I tend to feel a bit self-conscious, but he got everyone dancing around like mad - including me."

COUNCILLOR STEVE CARDOWNIE, city events champion

"I went to see Led Zeppelin at the King's Theatre in 1973. It was great to see them playing in such a small venue, and there were a lot of disappointed people in the city who couldn't get tickets that day.

"I remember they played Whole Lotta Love, and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were just phenomenal.

"More recently I went to the Rolling Stones at Murrayfield, in 1999.

"There was a cartoon in the Evening News before the gig of them walking around on Zimmer frames, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Their set was really energetic, and packed with classics."

NOBBY CLARK, singer, the Bay City Rollers (1969-73)

"The most outstanding gig I ever saw was Pink Floyd at the Usher Hall in the mid-1970s.

"The light show was fantastic, the music was fantastic - it was just an outstanding gig all round. They had an aeroplane suspended above the balcony that descended during one of the songs and hit a big target behind the stage.

"I also went to see Alice Cooper biting the heads off chickens at the Playhouse. He had a robot on stage which he built up during one of the songs, and then he let it go and it walked around the stage.

"That concert was incredible. Quite gory - but great fun."

MARTIN METCALFE, singer/gutarist, Goodbye Mr Mackenzie and Isa and the Filthy Tongues

"I've been to gigs in large venues like Murrayfield before, and I think they're really devoid of atmosphere.

"I went to see David Bowie at the Ingliston Showground in 1990, and it was all right but it wasn't great, and I also went to see Oasis at the same venue when they were really hot and on the up in 1996, but the venue ruined it for them.

"One exception was the Pixies at Meadowbank during T on the Fringe in 2005, which I thought was an amazing gig. It was a really windy day so the sound quality wasn't the best but their playing was top form. I'd been to see them about five times in the early years, and I was really surprised that singer Black Francis could still scream. I also went to see PJ Harvey at the Queen's Hall a couple of weeks ago, which I have to admit was probably one of the greatest gigs I've ever seen.

"She was playing new stuff that I'd never heard before, and it was really cinematic.

"Her voice would go from a really deep, obscene, man-like voice, to being really gentle and childlike, and then she would scream like a woman-possessed. There was something really special about it."

MARK MACKIE, director of concert promoter Regular Music EUNICE OLUMIDE, MC of hip-hop band Northernxposure

"My favourite gig was REM at the Playhouse during their Green tour in the late 1980s, when the band were at their finest. Michael Stipe stood up at a lectern in the middle of gig and started lecturing us about the evils of the Exxon company, right after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, banging his fist and ordering us to boycott a list of products made by the company."

EUNICE OLUMIDE, MC of hip-hop band Northernxposure

"I went to the last Oasis gig at Murrayfield and I thought it was absolutely amazing, even though their music's not my usual thing.

"There was this mass exodus of people heading out of the city centre to Murrayfield. I lost all of my friends and ended up standing by myself in the middle of crowd, and then the place just started going mental. I crowd-surfed to the front and met these totally random people and had a wicked time.

"I've also been to some brilliant nights at the Venue to see people like Roots Manuva, Black Twang and Estelle, which is more my kind of scene."