Credit: PROMO
Some bands just don’t speak.
Lou Reed was not known for his convivial nature.
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The Ramones barely ventured beyond 1-2-3-4. And Frank Black of the Pixies takes pride in getting his head down and thrashing out two minute alt pop wonders.
The Mackintosh Church, in Maryhill, GlasgowCredit: Alamy Stock Photo
The Pixies infamously have few words on stageCredit: ALAMY
Through some misguided belief that they will shatter their mystique. Their myth. Their legend.
John Bramwell is not among their number.
The former I Am Kloot frontman offers as many anecdotes as he does songs. But that really is part of the attraction.
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You see, Bramwell, now 60, offers that kind of confidence and swagger that could only belong to a Mancunian musician.
There is lip, lustre and laughs.
In fact I’d bet it’s been time since the people packing the pews of the magnificent Mackintosh Church, in Glasgow, have been so enthralled and entertained by what the man at the alter has to say.
From tales of playing guitar for two years before learning they needed to be tuned, to the touching story of his first encounter with legendary Radio One DJ John Peel at the height of gothic post punk and how he was played several times a week – despite being hideously unfashionable. But being out of step has done little to dampen his credentials.
Glasgow has hosted scores of gigs as part of this year’s Celtic Connections
After the opening number he eyes the crowd telling them: “That was good. How much is it? £25. I could go off now.”
His jagged acoustic driven songs straddle the middle ground between, hope and hopeless, love and loss.
He tells the crowd how Elbow frontman Guy Garvey and his former bandmates took him to task over the reprise of Mouth On Me being written in past tense – ‘I was young and I had a mouth on me’ – to the laughter of the crowd.
The set mixes songs from across his career – stretching right back to that 1980s Peel track Black and Blue up to 2024’s the Light Fantastic – via his I Am Kloot best bits.
On Northern Sky there’s a sense of acceptance. As Bramwell intones ‘Where did you go on that big black night? Did you take the coast road back through your life? See the sand, the moon, the stars that shine the light and say, well They’ll do all right for me.’
At one stage an over exuberant fan is told, mid-song, “You’re getting a bit Mumford and Sons” with a wry smile.
There is a heartfelt air of understatement to almost everything he does. And his humour, often self-deprecating, punctuates the evening.
There are darker moments.
‘To the Brink’ is a detour to different days – talking of buzzing off smiles and the light being stripped from your bones.
Proof, a confessional provides a fitting bookend to a set of shards of tenderness heavily underlined by Bramwell’s wounded lament – ‘who am i without you?’
Bramwell could well be the patron saint of northerners. Sharp, understated, and self-assured. A man in his element entertaining and amusing.
And from one gobby northerner to another – the world is a better place for it