Karine Polwart

16th November 2019

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

I had hoped to catch Karine Polwart's Scottish Songbook show upon first performance, at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival, but that show clashed with Ross (Blue Rose Code) Wilson's not dissimilar What is Caledonia Soul?  Each showcasing Scottish songwriting from the past half century or so.

Karine's venture has rather grown arms and legs since that initial performance, for she has now released an album of cover versions and presented the show at a number of high profile venues on both sides of the border.  Culminating in this pretty much sold out show at Edinburgh's prestigious Usher Hall.  “This will be the high point of all our careers” she quipped, not totally unseriously.

The majority of the songs came from the Eighties; the formative years in Karine's musical development.  Although choices ranged chronologically from John Martyn's 1973 Don't Want To Know to rather more contemporary stuff from the likes of Emile Sande and Biffy Clyro.

The lady was clearly keen to spread the love, so band accordionist Inge Thompson was given a chance (which she took) to shine on Somewhere in my Heart.  Whist Louis Abbott, on loan from Admiral Fallow, presented a starkly stripped back rendition of Party Fears Two, before providing us with the most surreal moment of the evening with his cover of Ivor Cutler's Women of the World.

But, ultimately this was Karine's party, and she had chosen those songs which meant most to her, prefacing many with poignant and/or funny anecdotes from her youth.

This pic (the children's choir) puts me in mind of one of the closing scenes to
Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

  
We had a children's choir troop onstage at one point to chant along to a rendition of a Lewis Capaldi tune.  There looked to be 50 or so kids up there, and my cynical self could not help but think that if each brought along two parents, some grandparents and, perhaps a smattering of siblings, then that was a fair wodge of the Usher Hall tickets sold before even looking towards us punters.  But that was more than a little unfair of my alter ego, I reproached him.

As I said, all of the songs were written or co-written by folks born in Scotland.  Although squeezing in Road To Nowhere did appear to be stretching the criteria for inclusion more than a little, with composer David Byrne having left Scotland when he was just two years old.  

Although perhaps the song refers to the fortunes of the town football club during the sixty-odd years since wee Davie crossed the Atlantic.


Set list

The Whole of the Moon (The Waterboys)
The Mother We Share (CHVRCHES)
From Rags to Riches (The Blue Nile)
I Could Be Happy (Altered Images)
Someone You Loved (Lewis Capaldi)
Machines (Biffy Clyro)
Since Yesterday (Strawberry Switchblade)
Party Fears Two (The Associates)
Waiting for the Parade (The Big Dish)
I Don't Wanna Know
Teardrop (Massive Attack)
Chance (Big Country)
Here Come The Rain Again/Smalltown Boy (Eurythmics/Bronski Beat)
Somewhere in my Heart (Aztec Camera)
Swim Until You Can't See Land (Frightened Rabbit)
Dignity (Deacon Blue)
Women of the World (Ivor Cutler)
Read All About It (Emili Sande)
Road To Nowhere (Talking Heads)
Whatever's Written in Your Heart (Gerry Rafferty)

Karine Polwart - Edinburgh Usher Hall - November 2019