Tag: Biffy Clyro

Other British Gigs 5 – Ayr

I always readily jump at every opportunity available to head North of the border and one of my favourite places to visit is the town of Ayr. The town is situated on the southwest coast of Scotland and lies just south of Prestwick Airport.

The main musical claim to fame of the airport occurred on the date of 3rd March 1960 when a certain Sergeant Elvis Presley had a stopover as he was just finishing up his national service. Upon alighting from the plane, he reputedly asked ‘Where Am I?’. Due to the astonishingly unhealthy control his ‘manager’ Colonel Tom Parker held over him this was rather mournfully the only two hours he ever spent on British land!

Elvis has left the plane! Image Credit pinterest.com

Ayr is a popular tourist destination due to its railway links and the fact that it has a fabulous beach slap bang in the centre of town. Robert Burns was born nearby and there is also a considerable musical heritage with Stuart Murdoch (Belle and Sebastian), Simon Neil (Biffy Clyro) and Mike Scott (Waterboys) having been born there.  It was also obscurely recognised as the second healthiest town centre in the UK in 2014 by the Royal Society of Public Health.

I missed an opportunity to visit in the late 90’s when John and Tony Dewhurst and Uncle George had a very merry night in the many hostelries before the following day heading to catch the ferry at Wemyss Bay over to the Isle of Bute.

The reason for them visiting this unusual location was to witness a famous Mogwai gig in Rothesay on the island. I was always then under the impression that the band headed back on a chartered boat with fans to the Port of Glasgow whilst undertaking a DJ set, but Stuart Braithwaite corrects me on that take of events in his recent autobiography where they actually stayed on Bute that evening and had their own private party.    

A random fact for you now, Rothesay Castle is one of a very small list of castles in Scotland that still has a remaining moat. The source of this information was from a line in an Iain Banks book Raw Spirit, purchased in a charity shop in Settle, that I am currently reading where he went in search of the perfect Whiskey dram. Iain remains my favourite ever author and his early untimely death in 2013 still stings alongside the corresponding loss of the delightful anticipation of waiting for his latest novel to be released.

Gill and I have visited Ayr a couple of times to attend the Gold Cup and the Scottish Grand National meetings at the nearby racecourse where they have been held since 1965. On the second occasion I recall it being absolute carnage on the packed shuttle bus back into town, but in a Scottish high jink’s fun kind of way!

On our initial visit in 2011 we stayed the night before the races due to the long commute journey involved getting there. There were some fantastic restaurants located in the town including a superb ‘cheap as chips’ Chinese place next to the Wetherspoons and Gill still contends she sampled the best ever Lasagne in one of the Italian restaurants.   

On the Wednesday night, I was corresponding with my pal Tony Dewhurst who was down in Somerset to potentially witness Lancashire Cricket Club win their first County Championship title for 77 years, but it was looking very unlikely at that stage. On the Thursday morning, we took a life-affirming walk along the beach trying to pick some winners for the day and the sunshine was thankfully cracking the flags.

Ayr ‘Riviera’ Beach at night. Image Credit Pinterest.

After the meeting had finished, we headed into the Ayr Racecourse Horseshoe Bar to allow the crowds to clear before heading back into town.  As we were chatting to another couple a local band called Sistrum booted up and played a set in the corner of the room.

In the taxi back into Ayr I got a text from Tony informing me that Lancashire had just sealed the title, so a glass was thus raised to their historic achievement in an Irish bar near to the station, prior to having a superb curry to finish the trip in style.  

First T in the Park Festival

The first full Festival I ever attended was T in the Park in July 1999 with John Dewhurst and Uncle George. I recall John attended the first couple of festivals in 1994 and 1995 when were held in Strathclyde Park, Hamilton with easy access from Glasgow before the festival moved to the larger site at the disused Balado airfield in 1997. Problems were subsequently encountered at the 2016 festival resulting in that being the last event.

We decided to grab a B&B in Edinburgh with the obligatory dolls dotted everywhere in our triple room and commuted into the site from there which turned out to be a bit of a trawl as it was over an hour each way on the shuttle bus, but you had the consolation of crossing the Forth Road bridge. After a couple of bevies in town on the Saturday we caught the bus about 3pm.  The weather gods smiled on us that weekend.

It was a huge site with several stages, and it possessed a natural amphitheatre for the main stage location. It was a cracking roster that year.

First up on the main stage was in retrospect a touching set as it transpired to be one of Joe Strummer’s final gigs prior to his untimely death, he was backed up by the Mescaleros. Following them was the New York faux gangsters Fun Lovin Criminals with their inimitable lead singer Huey Morgan, who is now a Radio 6 DJ. He was dishing out priceless advice by encouraging us ‘to go out and grab some ass’!  Their ‘Scooby Snacks’ track naturally went down a storm. We also caught a portion of the Stereophonics set.

See the source image
Joe Strummer on stage. Image Credit Las Vegas Weekly

We caught a segment of a very young Travis in a packed Stage 2 tent playing a rousing rendition of ‘All I Wanna Do is Rock’ and in the Slam Tent we saw Basement Jaxx.

In the King Tuts Wah Wah tent I encountered Death in Vegas for the first time and they were startingly good, opening with an astonishing 10-minute version of ‘Dirge’ with the added bonus of the guest vocalist Dot Allison actually on stage as she was also playing the festival as a solo act and we caught her set the following day.

The headline act was Mogwai and only the second time I had seen them at that stage, and George’s first and they were in fine fettle. Upon realising they were clashing with main stage headliners Blur, who they understandably had no time for the cheeky young scamps devised some T-shirts. Mogwai had been previously quoted that they thought Blur were one of the weakest bands on the planet thus the message emblazoned across the front was their interpretation of the dictionary definition of the band, namely ‘Blur: Are S#*#e’. I regretfully never purchased one of the T-shirts.   

  

See the source image
Infamous T-Shirt. Image Credit WordPress.com

 

Upon arriving back into the city, we foolishly stayed out until about 3am, however the dolls were still waiting for us when we arrived back. Thankfully John had some remaining dexterity to navigate a troublesome lock, whilst me and George giggled inanely behind him!

What greeted me the following morning was one of my all-time crippling hangovers and the thought of another full festival day was put it mildly particularly undesirable at that point in time. The only potential cure was the Hair of the Dog method though I was contending with the size of a Saint Bernard resulting in the extreme step of supping a brandy at lunchtime to set me right.

A few pints followed in a bar on Rose Street and I recall the British Grand Prix being on and chatting to an engaging American chap called Hank who became known thereafter as ‘Hank the Yank’. I felt infinitely better leaving than when entering the pub though I did flag later in the day.

In the newcomer’s tent, we saw Astrid and a very young Biffy Clyro.  On other stages we witnessed Placebo, Massive Attack, Gay Dad, Lanterns and Deus.

However, the best three acts of the day were the main performances in King Tuts tent. A soothing set from the Delgados was followed by a rousing one from Idlewild. The headliners were Mercury Rev who produced a terrific swirling performance to bookend the festival.

On the packed bus on the return journey some punter dropped his cube of recreational drugs. He went into panic mode as he wasn’t the owner resulting in the surreal sight of the entire top deck crouching down searching for the missing artefact before it was eventually located.

We landed back just shy of midnight and we were ravenous. We tasked a local taxi driver to find us an open Chinese takeaway and he met the challenge. A midnight feast followed before having a nightmare about those damn dolls!

I awoke feeling like a new man in the morning and we headed home via an ice cream stop in Moffat.