Monday 13th December 1999

Glasgow - King Tut's Wah Wah Hut

It was a cold drive to Glasgow. I was hoping thet as we were heading south it would get warmer...but it didn't.

We were a bit late for an interview with Beat 106, so we drove straight to the Radio Station. Adie (who had come in the van with us from Aberdeen) and I walked over to the radio station and the other drove off to the venue. The interview was with Jim Gellatly, who is well know on the Scottish music scene and with whom I have done quite a few interviews over the years. We recorded the interview for broadcast that evening, so we plugged the gig and the CD as much as possible. Jim's a lovely bloke and is genuinely interested and excited by music.

We got a taxi back to the venue where Stevie was already setting up for the soundcheck. It was great to be back at King Tut's after so long. The last time that I was there was backin '91 with Carter and I was very pleased that the place hadn't changed that much. Claire and Dave from the venue made us very welcome and made sure that we were warm, fed and watered. The soundman did a great job at the soundcheck and we felt very good when we tucked into our dinner of various tasty dishes from the delicious menu offered by King Tut's.

I popped out to a phone box to phone home and to check if Crissi had got home safely and ask her how the Chemistry test went. It was so cold in the phone box that my teeth were chattering and the earpiece stuck to the side of my face. BRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Yes, I am a soft English pussy.

The venue was getting very healthily full when first band Fred began their set. They played a great set of indie tunes, my favourite being a song called 'Life's A Drag, Queen', there was also another great one about a punk or something.

Next on were Red ??? Belgrade, who had a very 'Glasgow' sound and reminded me a lot of Teenage Fan Club, which is not a bad thing at all in my books. The crowd really gave them a warm reception and they played some top tunes.

Next we came on-stage in a very haphazard way, as when checked to see if my guitar was in tune it was in the key of e dangerous and one of the strings was the wrong string. In a semi-panic, I changed the string and tuned up my spare guitar. Eventually t was all sorted out and we began to play 'Aren't We All', the crowd seemed to appreciate the punk rock vibes so we launched straight into the 'Abdou Theme' followed by 'I Don't Know'. 'Nobody Less Rock n Roll...' went down exceedingly well and for once I remembered most of the words. The rest of the set rolled away quite nicely and to make it a top gig the crowd invited us back to do some more songs. We obliged with 'Queen Bitch' and 'Too Old For Rock n Roll'.

I had a lovely time and so did the audience if the people I spoke to afterwards were anything to go by.

I went up to see Claire, who paid me and we had a great chat about the music scene and the possibilities of Abdou playing T in The Park next year. Wouldn't that be cool?

There was to be a mammoth journey overnight to Cheltenham tonight so, we braced ourselves for the ordeal. It was a cold night and that van was going to get very chilly.

Goodbye to Glasgow and to Scotland, we love you, see you soon.

Love fruity xxx