Legends of the Sun Pig

Last year was weird, but good.

In the end, I was off work from the middle of June until the end of the year. I didn’t know how long that time would be at the start of it, though. I definitely wanted to take at least 3 months off free and clear, but beyond that it would depend on the job market. I have a mild allergy to the term “productivity”, but I wanted to “use my time well.” Almost immediately after coming back from my work trip to Edinburgh I started some big DIY projects around the house (bike shed, garden shed, bathroom…) that lasted into August. At the end of August my parents came to visit for a week, and by September I was kinda itching for another project.

(Aside: after having been laid low by burnout for months, having energy and enthusiasm for DIY work and manual labour came as a surprise to me. It really was like a switch had been flipped on the day I left my old job.)

After seeing them support Lovejoy in 2023, Fiona raved about Canadian band Good Kid, and was fondly hoping that they would come back to the UK and Europe at some point. At the start of 2024 the band did announce some headline dates on this side of the Atlantic in September, and Fiona snagged a ticket for their Glasgow gig immediately. I got myself a ticket for their show in Amsterdam in September…and also one for Glasgow. This was in March 2024, shortly after I’d decided to leave my Masters project, but before I’d decided on the timeline for leaving my job at FD. I figured that either I’d be still working for FD and could plan a work trip to Scotland to coincide with the gig, or I’d be taking some time off, and could treat myself to some time in Scotland without work at all. Either way: it felt like there was a good chance I could go and see them in Glasgow with Fiona.

This doesn’t explain Los Campesinos!, though. For that, I have to come back to the garden shed project. Going by my photos archive, we painted our garden shed at some point in March 2012. It used to be plain wood, but since then it has been glossy white. I don’t remember much about the work, but I do remember listening to two albums while doing the painting: The National Health by Maxïmo Park, and Hello Sadness by Los Campesinos! Out of nostalgia I started listening to Hello Sadness while I was working on the shed in June. Despite loving that album, I hadn’t kept up with the band over the years. My loss. I was blown away when by their more recent albums, and I immediately rolled into their brand-new material from 2024. Turns out they were just about to release their new album All Hell, and also play some gigs to support it – including one in Glasgow in September…the week before Good Kid.

It didn’t take me long to decide that I definitely had to spend some time in Scotland around those dates.

Not only that, but I mentioned to Fiona that they might like the band as well, and I sent some recommendations for tracks to listen to. Fiona loved them. We got tickets for the Glasgow gig as soon as they were available. Not only that, but I got my friend Graham in Glasgow interested in going along as well. And then he found out that his daughter is super into the band, and he got her a ticket as well. So we found scheduled for a double concert dad outing. Nice!

More context is needed. Fiona had moved to Scotland in 2022, but still had most of their stuff here in Oostzaan. There was still a ton of their art supplies in their room here. They had space for it in their flat in Dundee now, and it made sense to try and move more of it over to Scotland. So Fiona came over here for a few days in September with the goal of packing up as much of their stuff into boxes as would fit in our car, and then I would take the car over to the UK by the IJmuiden-Newcastle ferry, and drive the boxes up to Dundee. I love passenger ferries, and I’d been looking for an opportunity to take the boat over to Scotland again for years. This was going to work out perfectly. I’d have the car with me to drive us to the gigs in Glasgow, and also available in Dundee for going shopping, and picking up odds and ends for the flat in case I did some painting and decorating while I was there*.

With the back seats of the car folded down, we managed to pack it with eight large removal boxes and about five or six smaller ones. Solo almost managed to disrupt my departure by escaping our back garden and getting himself stuck at our neighbours six doors up the street half an hour before I was due to leave for the ferry. But we got him back with only minor injuries, and I had a lovely leisurely ferry crossing. The weather was warm, the Sky Bar on the top deck of the Princess Seaways was open, and I had my camera and a bunch of lenses with me. It was glorious.

The ferry crossing was on Thursday 19th, and the LC! gig was on Saturday 21st. (Was I wearing my Sept 21 shirt? Of course I was.) Fiona and I also enjoy going for walks when I’m visiting. We figured that seeing as we’d be in Glasgow anyway, we could do an overnight stay and then find somewhere nice on the West coast to go walking the next day. We booked rooms at the MyMotel in Paisley. (It was fine, and inexpensive, but they’re going to regret the new tiling work in their bathrooms in a few years’ time.) On the drive over on Saturday afternoon we started listening to ME REX, the band playing in the support slot. Fiona and I both liked them, which was a great sign for the gig in the evening.

We got to Paisley a little later than intended. We dropped our bags at the hotel, and drove into Glasgow. We parked at Kelvinbridge Park & Ride, and walked up to Paesano Pizza on Great Western Road, where we met Graham and his daughter. The restaurant is described as “vibrant”, but in practice this just meant “noisy”. Graham and I enjoyed out pizza, but the artisinal style didn’t quite suit our offspring, and the noise was just too much stimulation. We didn’t linger after finishing our food.

Graham went to Glasgow University, so he knew the area well. It was a short walk to Queen Margaret Union, and it was nice to decompress a bit after the restaurant. The gig was sold out, and the venue was busy when we got there, but we found ourselves a good spot with clear sight lines. (And I was reminded how pleasant it is to see a gig in Scotland, where people are on average shorter than in NL.) ME REX came on and launched into their song “Jupiter Pluvius“, which we’d been listening to in the car. They were great. They played another seven songs, all of which I would recognize now because I’ve continued to listen to them a ton since then. But at the time it all felt fresh and new. They were loud and fun and exciting.

Los Campesinos! don’t release new music very often, and they don’t tour very much. When they do play gigs, they have a policy of only inviting mixed-gender acts to support them, and they will only play in venues with mixed-gender bathrooms. They recently did a write-up covering the cost — to them — of playing a show in Dublin. A banner reading “Safety, dignity, & healthcare for all trans people” was draped over their backline equipment. They’re principled. Their music and lyrics are raw and impassioned. And they’re just terrific live. They played a long set, and it was packed with bangers.

1. A Psychic Wound
2. I Broke Up in Amarante
3. Romance is Boring
4. Avocado, Baby
5. Holy Smoke
6. By Your Hand
7. What Death Leaves Behind
8. Feast of Tongues
9. Long Throes
10. For Flotsam
11. Straight In at 101
12. Moonstruck
13. kms
14. Knee Deep at ATP
15. I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know
16. To Hell in a Handjob
17. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
18. The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future
19. 0898 HEARTACHE

Encore:

20. Clown Blood; or, Orpheus’ Bobbing Head
21. Hello Sadness
22. You! Me! Dancing!
23. Baby I Got the Death Rattle

I had gone to the merch stand to buy some T-shirts in the gap between ME REX and LC!, but after the gig I decided to get a poster as well. After all the queuing, we met outside and said our goodbyes. Graham and his daughter headed off, while Fiona wanted to sit down for a bit. I think it was Freshers Week at the uni, because the streets were full of partying students in all kinds of fancy clothes. We stopped off for Room Snacks at a Co-Op on the way back to the car, and drove back to Paisley for the night.

The following day we got up and set off for Puck’s Glen near Dunoon, a small slice of temperate rainforest. We drove to Gourock and got the ferry across the water, then headed for the forest. There wasn’t much parking nearby, but we found a spot, and had a lovely wee walk. (Not nearly as long as the 17km trek up to the Blackwater Reservoir in 2023…)

After that, we took the scenic route back: north past Loch Esk, round the tip of Loch Fyne to Inveraray, north to Dalmally, and then along the A85 via Tyndrum, Crianlarich, Crieff, and Perth, back to Dundee. We listened to a bunch of ME REX along the way, as well as a lot of other music. Fiona wasn’t car sick, but they did sleep for much of the last stretch. It was a long drive! And it was a very good weekend.

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* I did a lot of painting and decorating while I was there. I had originally planned to be there for ten days, but I extended the trip by a week when it became clear that I had been ridiculously ambitious about what we could achieve in that time.

I think that Del Amitri’s 1989 album Waking Hours was the first CD I bought after moving to Scotland after secondary school. (It’s a long time ago.) It’s definitely an album I listened to a lot. I definitely remember listening to a tape of it on a portable cassette player on a long overnight bus ride between St. Andrews and London.

I never saw the band live until recently. My parents moved to North Berwick a few years ago, and North Berwick hosts a little offshoot of the Edinburgh Fringe festival every year: Fringe By The Sea. They’ve hosted some big (Scottish) names in the Big Top venue: Texas, Travis, and in 2024 Del Amitri. I had hoped that my parents could come along to see them as well, but the disabled access is limited and there were no suitable tickets left. My dad got me a ticket, and I went along on my own.

It was a pleasant evening in early August. I got to the Lodge Grounds way early. I was pretty much first in line when the stewards gathered people for the queue, and I got a great spot right in front of the stage. When my mental health is in a good state (i.e. not 2023/24), I like getting to a gig early and spending the time to enjoy the opening act(s), because they’re a great way to find new music I’m likely to enjoy. I’m thinking Bleu (opening for Toad the Wet Sprocket in Boston in 2003), Zoë Keating (opening for Imogen Heap in 2006), Thumpers (opening for Chvrches in 2013), etc. I can add Mandrake Handshake to that list. I don’t think they’re destined to be huge, but I loved them. They played a lush, groovy, modern psychedelic set that had me swaying along to their rich orchestration and easy rhythms. Honestly, the evening could have ended after them and I would have walked away happy.

Del Amitri came on later, and played a long, wide-ranging set full of favourites and crowd-pleasers. Lead singer Justin Currie has Parkinson’s, and from close up to the stage I could see a tremble in his hands when they weren’t actually playing his bass or holding the microphone. His voice is not as strong as it once was, but when you’ve got 2500 people in the crowd singing along to the familiar choruses, you can afford to hold back a little and roll with the room.

Set list:

1. Musicians and Beer
2. All Hail Blind Love
3. Always the Last to Know
4. Opposite View
5. Kiss this Thing Goodbye
6. Not Where It’s At
7. Mockingbird, Copy Me Now
8. Driving with the Brakes On
9. Move Away Jimmy Blue
10. You Can’t Go Back
11. Roll to Me
12. Here and Now
13. Tell Her This
14. Lonely
15. The Ones that You Love Lead You Nowhere
16. Spit in the Rain

Big encore:

17. Missing Person
18. Be My Downfall
19. Nothing Ever Happens
20. Gone in a Second
21. Stone Cold Sober

Being close to the stage I got some nice photos of the bands. (I had rented a Fujifilm X-H2 for this week I was over in Scotland, because I was taking a boat trip out to the Isle of May to see the puffins and other sea birds. I didn’t have a press pass, so I didn’t bring that to the gig with me.) My favourite photo of the evening, however, turned out to be a sideways shot of a steward, lit by the setting sun falling through the open flaps of the big top tent.

As a frequent concert-goer (mostly for bands that don’t sell out huge arenas) and as a notorious over-thinker (of everything), I often stand in the crowd at a gig and wonder how the finances work out for a band on tour. A couple of years ago Adam Neely made a video breaking down the costs of touring for his band Sungazer. Last month, Los Campesinos! shared a post giving details of the cost of playing a gig in Dublin.

Like Adam Neely, they clearly get people encouraging them to cut costs by forcing themselves to work under worse conditions:

Often when this conversation is had in the public domain, people will make statements like, “you can save money by sleeping in the van, or crashing on someone’s sofa” attempting to turn things into the dril candles meme. To those people, I say “grow up”.

I love music, and I love seeing artists play live. I kinda hate that the economics of this work out so poorly for them. The best I can do for them most of the time is to buy their music on a platform like Bandcamp (instead of, or as well as streaming it, because streaming is pretty convenient), showing up for them when they’re on tour, and buying their merch at the gig. (I’m very good at buying the merch.) But I wish that the music business was healthier, and could provide a more stable living for more people.

Related: the new album “Bicker” by Orchards is very good.

In his latest newsletter “On Having a Maximum Wealth” Hamilton Nolan discusses the idea of a “level cap” for real life:

The single most ridiculous aspect of human history is how much of it has been driven by the goal of allowing a tiny portion of a large population to live in luxury. This is a theme found, to varying degrees, in society after society across the world: A lot of people with a low standard of living working in service of the goal of raising the standard of living for some sort of ruler or supreme leader and his family and allies. I understand that this is not some sort of revelation. “You’ve discovered class,” you are now saying in a mocking tone. Beyond the social and political and economic dynamics underlying this process, though—things that make up magisterial fields of inquiry—I think that every once in a while it is well worth taking a moment to gape at the basic ludicrousness of this fact. As societal goals go, an honest reading tells us that we are often not aiming for “better technology” or “philosophical progress.” No, the reality is that, thousands of years and around the globe, the primary purpose of all the work that everyone is doing is “allowing a few jerks and their unbearable kids to live lavishly.” Countless millions through millennia have suffered, dragging stones to build pyramids and losing fingers in dirty factories and getting black lung so that Some Guy Somewhere can sit on a soft pillow and enjoy delicacies. 

What an absurd, idiotic goal to organize human society around. Wow!

I’m here for it.

I think I first came across Bilderbuch in 2015 or 2016; I remember sharing their track “OM” in a “New Music Monday” collaborative playlist at work. Their rich, genre-bending pop sound invited obvious comparisons with Falco, and I loved it. When I visited Julian in hospital in Austria at the start of 2019, I remember seeing their name on a poster in Innsbruck. It was probabaly for a gig or an album release. I jumped back into their catalogue, and found myself listening to “Checkpoint” on infinite repeat on my train journeys through the snow for the rest of that trip.

Since then I was waiting for them to play a show somewhere closer than Cologne, and last year they finally touched down in Amsterdam in March. I was still in deep burnout at work, and despite loving the band, and having bought a ticket as soon as I found out about the gig months before, I wasn’t excited on the day. I had to force myself to go into town. I skipped the support act (Kässy). As a latecomer, I had to squeeze myself into a corner of the Oude Zaal at Melkweg to get a barely decent view.

The gig was good, though. They kicked off with the powerful riffs and playful solos of “Softpower”, and carried on with the groovy “Dino”. Singer Maurice Ernst started off in a shirt and tie. He teased and flirted with the crowd and lost the shirt part-way through, but then gained a tight black crop-top. There were a ton of German fans in the audience, and a lot of singing along. Their live version of “Aber Airbags” is an extended, slow and trippy guitar solo tour that turns lively and up-tempo half-way through a 15-minute run, bursting with exuberance and a driving, bouncy beat. And of course they played “Spliff” as well. Amsterdam, innit.

Set list:

1. Softpower
2. Dino
3. Gigolo
4. Drugs
5. Bungalow
6. Willkommen im Dschungel
7. Aber Airbags
8. Maschin
9. Ab und Auf
10. Checkpoint

Encore:

11. Digitales Wunder
12. Spliff
13. Bluezone