A Night at the Oran Mor

Hullo ma wee blog,

On Tuesday night we went through to Glasgow to the 'Oran Mor', a music venue in an old kirk, to see Lissie perform. This was a new venue to me. I'd heard about it but never been before even though it's been around for some time. It was easy enough to find, sitting as it does on the junction of Great Western Rd and Byers Rd,  two famous Glasgow streets on the western side of town. For once parking was straight forward too and we found a place on street within a hundred yards of our destination. A quick look around showed there were also several restaurants to choose from for a quick bite and we settled on an inviting looking little Italian place almost next to where the car was parked.

An hour later and we were ready to make our way across to the venue and check out whoever might be on support. The small space was quite packed by the time we got in and, as is often the case, it was going to be a hot night all packed in together. Luckily we had both left our jackets in the car.  Despite the crowd at this mostly all standing venue,we managed to find ourselves - well me really - a couple of nice soft seats with a view of the stage, although that would change later as more people arrived. The crowd seemed to cover a large range of ages, which I always find reassuring as I hate to feel that I'm the oldest swinger in town, mainly because it usually tells me I'm not going to enjoy the music as much as I hoped. The support act, a one girl, two boy trio called 'Ramona', presumably after the lead singer, were well into their set and comfortably banging out some tight guitar-driven rock which reminded me of 'James' or 'Texas' meets 'REM', but with a bit more modern edge to it. She had a good voice for lead vocals and I was quite sorry to see them go after only a couple of songs. I would have happily listened for a lot longer. 

The roadies efficiently handled the small amount of kit change and after only about fifteen minutes Lissie appeared on stage, with the small band from the video above, to kick off the first night of her first UK tour as a headline act in her own right. I'd heard of few songs from her on the radio and the first song which I ever heard - which I've chosen for the video -  struck me with the similarity between her voice and Stevie Nicks, one of my all time favorite singers. Much of her material is American folk-based rock and fairly mainstream, but my goodness she has a great voice and needs just a microphone to hold you spellbound. Her voice just soars out over the band across the audience in a way that almost no-one does these days. The vocals are the key to her success. Her voice is very friendly and yet commands attention. I like it. A lot.

I'm going to finish here due to some computer problems which mean this short post has taken almost an hour to write.......

back soon.