I am quite taken by the precience and pin sharp accuracy of the reviewers appraisal of the gig.
All who attended should think themselves lucky that they were at this gig and not at the one I have just returned from at the Glasgow Concert Hall.

Sad to say that the great man not only let himself down, but he let his bandmates down in a big way …especially Will Sergeant who patched over McCullochs vocal mistakes and miscues as best he could. He also let down the fabulous String Sextet of young female players who had obviously rehearsed and polished their parts meticulously.

Most of all Mac let down the thousands of paying customers who were seriously shortchanged by the lacadaisical and shambolic end to the set. After an impeccable start, to the Ocean Rain set …. a blistering Silver, Nocturnal me , Crystal days and Yo Yo Man … the cracks started to show. Excacerbated albeit by some of the usual shameless neanderthal twats in the Glasgow audience shouting the usual shite and heckling during what should have been a pretty cultured affair. Same people no doubt who took to the bar rather than listen to the String section playing an intro set which included some rare gems.

Love will tear us apart was obviously a bit too highbrow for them.

McCulochs tendency to monologue incoherently and ruin the songs with overblown elongated middle sections of directionless rambling and forgetting his own classic lyrics, led to a stuttering stammering car crash of a scene which saw him cursing a ranting in very foul language to a paying audience which included some very young people who had come to see a classic album being played prefectly and in entirety. It was not to be and things got worse.

After more rants and claims about having had bad news, which may be true and probabaly were, Mac seemed to just be very drunk and incapable of caring about the set. Taking more of the hecklers to task and making an arse of Killing Moon ( unforgivable ….. probabaly the song most people came to hear ) he briefly and thankfully recovered composure for Seven Seas and My Kingdom before succumbing to his demons again and childishly rising to the bait of the hecklers, most of whom were just in a gathering chorus of people telling him to stop arsing about and sing the songs. His charisma and humor was dulled by drink and his patter with the exception of a few heartfelt words for the Glasgow audiences of old was just plain rubbish

The final insult to me and everyone else present was that he stomped off the stage refusing to play Ocean Rain …..my favourite song on the album and what should have been the enduring memory of the gig. Musicians exited stage looking bewildered and many people went home.
I hope at least one of them had the guts to tell him what an idiot he was being.

We stayed and prayed and finally they returned to the stage with Mac looking sober and contrite. he apologised for his behaviour and appeared to promise the crowd the entire album set again. A promise ( sic ) which was obviously scuppered by the event staff telling him that time was too short.

We just wanted to hear Ocean Rain they then launched back into a reprised Killing moon which unravelled again and once more the demons took hold and they gave up the ghost ….still having not played Ocean Rain.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh ! as they say.

I have had the memories of bygone gigs shattered, and had the missfortune of watching a great man act like a child. Could someone who knows him well enough please tell him that he is loved and worshipped by a great many people in Scotland ….in particular in Glasgow which he calls his spiritual home.

We will forgive a great many things but for him to piss all over the chance of creating something spectacular and magical which would live in the memory of longtime fans forever is frankly a disgrace.

Mac … if you did receive bad news our thoughts are with you.
Stop boozing so much at you own shows. Your fans deserve better and so do your band.
Get back to doing what you do best and stop worrying about the hecklers, the audience will take care of those assholes.

You owe us one Mac ….. come back soon and next time DO IT CLEAN.

Thanks for the good bits …… thanks to the band for trying their best.

Thanks for reading this.
I’m off to listen to Ocean Rain and have a wee cry.

James Lynch
Glasgow

Agree with both you lads. Canny believe what we witnessed!!! Still playing it over in my head. Been on the different sites reading the reviews…majority very similar to your own comments. I’ve read a few crackers saying that it was people in the audience’s fault for what happened????? You know blaming so called hecklers for the failure of the concert is obscure. In reality the biggest heckler was McCulloch.

A heckler to me is someone who attends a concert or event and constantly interrupts those performing in order to ruin the songs, gain attention for themselves and just basically create a bad atmosphere in the hall. Well folks this is exactly what McCulloch done including continual very crude swearing, insulting so many people and more….much more.

If McCulloch would have just at least made an effort to perform, the amount of heckling he received just wouldn’t have ocurred. And to be truthful the so called heckling that I heard wasn’t even heckling it was just members of the audience expressing their total disappointment and disgust with his behaviour. I heard one guy over at the side of the hall shout out that he was ruining the concert and that his behaviour was disgusting. For me that wasn’t heckling that someone pointing out to McCulloch the facts of his actions and behaviour. After this guy shouted this out that’s when others started shouting out as well and the rest is history.

Uch Mac, you’ve beening building up to this for a very long time. Should we really be surprised that it has happened? Well, actually didn’t think it would be in Glasgow of all places.