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A few days before Christmas and the perfect gig to get the crowd in the festive spirit. The support act for the night is Donna Maciocia from Edinburgh three-piece Amplifico occasionally aided by various members of the ‘Feldy. She has a fantastic voice and some fine songs. Despite the strength of her material (‘We Believe in Something Unusual’ and ‘The Comedy Stops Here’ in particular are excellent) the highlights of her set are two covers. Bjork’s ‘Who Is It?’ provided an excellent platform for Maciocia’s bewitching vocal talent, whilst Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ is infinitely improved by the addition of a ukulele (which isn’t a sentence I ever envisaged myself typing).
Aberfeldy themselves are in fine fettle despite having been dropped by their record company and losing two members (keyboardist Ruth Barrie and violinist Sarah MacFadyen). Those two have been replaced by guitarist Chris Bradley and Shetland fiddler (no sheep jokes, please) Vicky Gray. Returning the favour of earlier in the evening, Donna Maciocia also adds her voice and keyboard skills on a number of the tracks. The evening is mostly a showcase for new material. Of the new songs the standouts are ‘Claire’ (which lead-singer Riley Briggs informs us is about a neighbour who complained about the noise of the band practising) and ‘Malcolm’ (which harnesses a preponderance of fish-based puns.) The new songs seem to mark something of a return to the more alt.country and folk elements of the debut album ‘Young Forever’ which were a little lost on the follow-up ‘Do Whatever Turns You On’. At heart, though, the songs demonstrate that Riley knows how to craft a pop-tune and have a sense of fun.
Having witnessed the support act do a take on a Christmas cover-version, Aberfeldy give us the slightly dubious treat of two for their encore. After taking to the organ for Chris De Burgh’s ‘A Spaceman Came Travelling’ Riley laughs off the cheers saying ‘you don’t know what we’re going to play yet. The track is delivered with a mock-seriousness that is only slightly undermined by Riley forgetting the lyrics half-way through. Then comes a delightfully unselfconscious version of Shakin’ Stevens ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ which has a good section of the crowd dancing just as unselfconsciously. All in all it was a fine pre-Christmas gig, some very good pop-songs and a nice dose of silliness which helped to shake off the winter blues.
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