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Kerrsday WhirliGIG – Stirling University, 15/11/1979

I started listening to this gig last night. First thing that hits you is that Capital City is not quite Capital City. From what I can tell, this is its debut outing and the song at this point is just referred to as “Pulse”.

There are different words to it, there’s no “city that we live on” – it’s an island.

“The unspoken word
To an island we can live on
You take, you break to unsettle, take
To an island that we live on
To an island that we crawl on
….
Well you took its culture the tribal …” (can’t decipher the line properly)

I had a go at trying to work out the lyrics. I love hearing the germ of something new. I love being let into that. It feels like you’re being let in on a secret. Those were the days! We’re never privy to ANYTHING now until it’s fully formed. Jim keeps everything very close to his chest now and doesn’t really share anything beyond saying “I’m writing”.

I think this might just be my favourite version of Here Comes The Fool of the ones I’ve heard. Jim is so UP on this version. He sounds like he is well up for this gig! He even comes in too early for the final chorus of the song. Lol

It also included is a very early outing of Naked Eye, which seems a little different lyrically to what is on the Real To Real Cacophony album. Just subtle changes and differences – Jim sings “It’s so dark, I don’t understand it”, for example. And there’s no reference to cherries or spiders at the end of the song. It actually sounds like a Sparks song the way it sounds when Charlie’s guitar comes in at the beginning.

I was alert enough until Life In A Day, then sleep started to take over, but I was alert enough until that point to take it the different to the norm performance that Jim seemed to be giving off. Firstly, he seemed slightly more talkative and interactive with the crowd than usual – esp. of that period. Secondly, his vocal performance seemed different than usual of the period. Perhaps he was flying high? He sounded like he was enjoying the gig anyway. Just from the sound of things, he was sounding more confident, and not the reserved, stilted performer he tended to exude in the very early days – “he seemed like he should have been in special school” as Mick said recently. Lol

I am really excited to hear the rest of it. You can’t help but get swept up in it. I mean, yes, it’s early days, but they are already two albums in and just…LISTEN TO THEM! No wonder every person who went and saw them then raved about them and that their following just kept growing exponentially. They’re barely two years into being a band and they have two albums under their belt, an already – small but – dedicated fanbase that just grows and grows and their so AWESOME.

I may be back later when I’ve heard to rest of the gig to expand and update this post. But until then… enjoy!

Thanks to Stuart Greaves for uploading the gig.

A little sidenote – the gig was on a Kerrsday ???

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