REVIEW: Blue Rose Code treated to rapt silence and heartfelt applause at Eden Court Inverness on Saturday
REVIEW:
Blue Rose Code, Gary Anderson
Eden Court, Inverness
5 stars
“I feel my spirits rise!” Blue Rose Code’s Ross Wilson sang in new song I Never Know Why, halfway through his Eden Court set on Saturday night.
From the rapt silence during songs and the full-hearted applause and whoops between them, the audience had probably been feeling their own spirits rise since the first cymbal wash opened the set and the music of the ace five-strong band including Wild Lyle Watt on electric guitar and Paul Harris on keyboards.
The set barely saw the band stop for breath, one song instantly shifting into the next with only minimal chat.
And not for the first time, as you watched Ross Wilson perform his songs, it was easy to see him as a preacher figure. There’s charisma, a sense of authority – he just had to stretch out his arms for us to stop clapping right on cue without being told, for example. But there’s a humility there too.
“Inverness, Eden Court, we are all grateful!” he added after Grateful, one of his biggest songs. At the end of Edina, the biographical song with bittersweet scenes from his Edinburgh youth, he broke off, semi-singing the words “Would you forgive us?” and held out his hands out, appealing to his audience.
Of course, there doesn’t seem anything we would possibly have needed to forgive him or his band for.
The mood of the night was joyful, though some of the songs tapped into Ross’s personal struggles, shapeshifting through genres including gospel, folk, country, world, jazz and reggae.
With a song like the Elvis Costello cover (Whats’ So Funny About) Peace, Love And Understanding, the band made it their own, Ross letting loose, dancing round the stage, just having to clap his hands once to get the crowd eagerly joining in.
In opening song Red Kites from latest 2020 album With Healings Of The Deepest Kind he held up his arm, hand open, as if bearing witness, or absorbing the energy of the crowd out in front of him in the darkness.
“Inverness, I hope you’ve had enough to drink because we are having it tonight!” he yelled with a grin.
And though the order of the songs ensured the pace and mood was rising and falling all the time, there was no let up in the energy reaching us from the stage.
Three songs from the latest album started things off, Red Kites, then – after Water Of Leith’s Bluebell – the euphoric current single LDN City Lights – “We know we have a dream and we offer no apologies, right here in the night I feel a solidarity, I pull to you, to your very soul” – and in Love A Little, Ross’s song knows dark days will return but he gives thanks “for giving me the chance to love again”. Christmas song (I Wish You) Peace In Your Heart saw Ross wishing his “brothers and sisters” can have love and peace.
Then there was a really jazz-powered version of Amazing Grace, before slipping back into the songs of the 2020 album, for the sublime Riverstown, a song about renewal and hope. Ebb & Flow extends that conversation – “Never try to find hope in another’s eyes” – the song earning one of the biggest cheers of the night.
Then the music was rolling on with favourites such as freedom song Sandaig and its roll call of West Coast places, then Grateful, Edina and Silent Drums.
An eclectic choice of covers continued with Elton John’s Benny & The Jets and Ross paying tribute to his mum’s “thoroughly unfashionable” record collection when he was growing up, but it gave us his relaxed take on Elkie Brooks’ Sunshine After The Rain leading to set closer, his own This Is Not A Love Song.
As the musicians speedily returned for the encore, Ross ruefully confessed that they must have waited too long at a gig in Glasgow – the promoter turned the lights on before the band could get back onstage.
It was hard to imagine Saturday’s Inverness crowd would have let that happen, the warmth apparently mutual as Ross left us with his traditional parting words 'I hope to see you up the road!'
It had been trains as the transport of choice in some of the understated but resonant songs of Blue Rose Code’s opening act, Gary Anderson from Montrose.
Looking At The Tracks, the title track from his album as Kinnaber Junction (named after a once-important railway junction just outside Montrose), opened his set. “You can’t tell what way the train went by looking at the tracks,” the slightly zen lyrics went. He followed up with The Hydro Boys, a loose Inverness connection being he had bought the book of that title in Inverness, he told us.
His song celebrated the men working on the hydro electric projects and included his wry comment on solar power – “The sun can’t be relied upon, us Scots would wait in vain”.
There was even a tenuous Inverness connection with his song Different Platforms, as it had been inspired as Gary waited on one station platform heading to Inverness for a gig a few years ago, while his wife had waited on the platform on the other side heading south.
The singer songwriter revealed how his journey to Inverness for this Blue Rose Code gig had happened after he was asked to step in to do a support set on Tuesday at Ross Wilson’s tour opening night at Montrose Folk Club which Gary helps to run.
“Then Ross invited me to come up and open for you tonight!”
In what would be a night showcasing great songwriting, Gary’s Melody To Memory talked about how particular songs can mean very different things to different people – “When the melody takes you by the hand and leads you to a place only you can understand”.
And you were still pondering that when his final song Baby Blue gently carried you by grown-up lullaby to the end of his chilled warm-up set for Blue Rose Code. MC
More info: bluerosecode.com
Gary Anderson – Facebook @KinnaberJunction
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