We’ve been in Norway since Sunday now, and a few days back we were treated to an Eric Clapton concert at the Bergenhaus. We and 20,000 other folk.

Honestly, I’m not the greatest connoisseur of Eric Clapton songs. I know the hits and that is about it. Despite that and that Eric isn’t a man of many words, it was a fantastic concert in a lovely location.  Even if it had been rubbish, the live version of Layla would have made up for it.

Just one downside to it all. I now want to come back in a couple of weeks for the Neil Young concert at Bergenhaus. And a couple of weeks after that for REM.  Don’t think it’s going to be possible.

David

Biffy Clyro played a gig in Shetland 5 years ago.  I didn’t know much about them, but when you’re 16, living in Shetland, when a band play you go see them just because it’s unusual for a mainland band to play Shetland.

Now that they are quite big, it would have been a great story to say I saw them when they were small and thought they were brilliant.  But that would be a lie. I thought they were awful.

Then about a year later they released a song called Only One Word Comes to Mind.  It was spectacular. And I started to like Biffy.

Fast forward a few years and the first single of their next album is just… stunning.

Mountains is the name of the song.  The BBC used it as the title music for their T In The Park coverage (awful presenting, but don’t let that put you off the song).

I have had it on repeat for a week and yet to grow sick of it.

Biffy Clyro - Mountains:

While we’re on the subject of Scottish artists. I listened to Amy Macdonald’s album This Is The Life for the first time in a few months the other day.  It was one of those albums that I slowly got sick of, having heard it so many times. But after a few months break, it was sounding lovely again. Pity on the tv coverage of T In The Park you could quite clearly see her expensive wedding ring.  Rubbish.

Amy Macdonald - Let’s Start a Band:

Memo to Simon Neil and the Biffy Boys:
As much as I enjoy your music, you don’t need to get naked on stage for me to enjoy it.  Thank you.

Memo to Amy Macdonald:
You don’t want to marry him. If you like your older man then I’m one, by 6 months.

This is old news now, but Jay-Z performed on stage at Glastonbury on Saturday. I’m not really a fan of his. Unlike Noel Gallagher though, it didn’t bother me that he was performing or headlining, I can understand people have different musical tastes and I’m fine with that.

But while watching his Glastonbury set, I did feel Noel maybe had a point. Glastonbury sets need to have something anthemic about them, and Jay-Z’s certainly didn’t.

The next statement has nothing to do with my massive love for Oasis, but Jay-Z tried to be clever with performing Wonderwall at the start of his set, but it didn’t work.  It was a very good idea, but it sounded like a poor karaoke version. If Jay-Z had personalised it a bit better it could have really made an impact. In fact by performing Wonderwall it led to the only anthemic part of his set, where the crowd sang along to the song.

Have a listen yourself, sounds pretty much like a typical Saturday night in the pub.

David

I’ve always been a semi fan of Coldplay. A lot of their material I like, a lot I hate. One of the funniest lines from Peep Show ever was “People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can’t trust people!” However I couldn’t wait to hear Coldplay’s much anticipated and incredibly catchy titled new album “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends“.

A copy arrived the other day, and on first listen I wasn’t that impressed. I’d already heard the title track and Violet Hill which on first listens I thought were both good songs, but as for the album, I felt it lacked something. I got to the last track and just thought “is that it?”

But I was aware that a lot of songs and albums take time to grow on me, so I put the album on my IPod and had it on rotation all weekend and I think it has finally clicked. Some observations… You need to listen to it from start to finish in the right order before it finally makes sense. For this reason I don’t think it’s very radio friendly, I can’t see how there can be many singles coming off of it. It’s very different to their previous work and I don’t think there are many anthemic tracks on it (no Scientists or Fix You’s).

The album is released on Thursday (randomly, most albums are released on Monday’s). But if you can’t wait till then, you can hear it all on their Myspace page. I would however warn, from past experience, it’s always nice to hear a brand new album in full proper CD quality and not being streamed off a Myspace page. So you may just want to wait till Thursday.

Best song on the album, Lost!

Conclusion. After the first listen I thought it was a bit of let down. After listen number 4 it is finally clicking into place. By listen number 8 it will probably be a stroke of genius.

David

Andrew with Mia Riddle and Dan Berry

We had one of my favourite sessions on the show this week, Mia Riddle, a folk singer song writer all the way from Brooklyn. She’s fantastic. And she’s only signed in Japan, she really should be signed here… if only I owned a record company.

I got a copy of her new album which is going to be out in about July, very nice. Look out for it.

Here’s my favourite song from the session, City Song:

royworld, taken by og2t on Flickr

I got myself a copy of Man In The Machine, the debut album from Royworld at the weekend and since then it’s been on heavy rotation on my IPod. It’s brilliant.

Emma and I were at their gig in Glasgow last month, going to see them on the strength of a couple of songs, and it was a really good (all be it quiet) gig.

I even got a little excited one day when I heard Radio 1 play them during the day. It’s quite unusual to hear Radio 1 play a song I like on daytimes these days. Original 106 have been playing them quite a bit recently too.

My main problem with Royworld isn’t their music or their act, but their name. It’s not the coolest of names out there is it? Think of someone you know called Roy and I reckon that person you think of isn’t very cool. I don’t know any Roy’s personally, so I immediately think of Roy Cropper from Coronation Street. Not exactly the image you want for your band.

That said it is a good album and well worth a listen, even if it sounds a little 80’s-ish. Sadly I don’t they will ever be huge. I think they will be one of those bands who in a few years time you’ll hear a song on the radio from them and say “Remember Royworld? They were great, what ever happened to them?” I’d like to be proved wrong.

Man In The Machine was out yesterday. Same Sun is my favourite track on the record:

David

Andrew and Frank Turner - nicked from Andrews Blog

A couple of weeks back on the Sunday Showcase we had solo folk singer song writer Frank Turner on. I’d heard the name before but wasn’t over familiar with any of his work. I happened to be in the office when he came to do the session (occasionally due to time constraints on the artist we have to record them rather than doing them live).

I’m not always in the studio for live sessions, that’s Andrews forte. But this time round I’m glad I went in. What a brilliant session and a very down to earth and modest guy.

If you get a chance check out some of his albums, and especially his new album Love Ire & Song, which is where this track this song comes from:

Frank Turner - Long Live The Queen

You can download this session on the Sunday Showcase Podcast - Episode 21

And also check out the song Photosynthesis on Love Ire & Song.

David

So it did dawn on me on Monday how good my job is. There I was sitting in the Aberdeen Music Hall surrounded by only a handful of other people watching Amy Macdonald sound check. But not just for a couple of minutes, or a few songs, but for a whole 45 minutes.

I, along with my colleague from Original 106 David Heane (who was conducting the interview) managed to witness a perfomance of Amy covering Somebody Told Me by the Killers, a song she didn’t even perform at the gig.

Here’s the interview that went out on Original 106. Amy was genuinely such a nice person.

And one of my favourite songs of the whole gig, a brand new song I’d never heard before. The quality isn’t great, but I found it on YouTube.