Monday 20/08/07 Guillemots @ Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh

Having down-scaled the venue from the traipse out-of-town of the Corn Exchange to the cooped yet cosy enclave of The Liquid Rooms due to poor ticket sales, seems like all of the multi-generations in attendance are the winners tonight. With a new album pending, the Guillemots romp through their finest moments from 'Through The Windowpane’ and give raucous tasters of their new recordings.

Fyfe Dangerfield takes to the wooden granny chair and set of double keys sporting a copious bouffant supported by brass and a thick-set drummer. Exploring free-jazz sonics with 'Go Away' bopping along and finding Fyfe with the banshee wails and there's no need for subtlety here, followed by the cheery title track 'Through The Windowpane’ - "...if you want it/ let it go..." with Fyfe showing he's got the lungs for England, and the music box keys of 'Love Song #43' making for one of the highlights with the tooting brass and singalong audience harmonies gearing up for the night.

Fyfe introduces a new old track that's an old new track and tells of the new album - "...this was before our 1st album but will probably be on our 7th album..." and kicks into 'Sea Out' with its marauding gypsy influences showing in the mania of brass and baroque keys proving an hypnotic treat. Bemusement and madcap comes with 'Sea Out' and 'Words' - psychedelic influences in the keys and free-jazz, and Fyfe acting like he's just supped x4 espressos. 'She's Evil' has the mad twirly keys and Happy Mondays influences, more like Madness playing a performance art-piece for the ghost train with a x4/4 beat making for one very macabre tune, but popular respite follows with 'Annie, Let's Not Wait' and it' Dexys by way of Leo Sayer but what the hell, it's a rockin' feelgood number.

'Blue Would Still Be Blue' comes solo from Fyfe with it's sonorous delights sans mic and with an old-keyboard-strapped-around-the-neck proving a beatific tear inducing moment delivered to pin-drop silence - "...and this is no palace/ the place that I live/ and I am no King/ but I've got things to give..." gets the rapturous applause. 'Redwings' shows a band that can work tender moments amidst anarchic tunes, and tonight is being recorded for XFM and the drummer is relaxing on parental duties by permitting himself x2 beers, which cues a launch into "It's 1 O'clock on a Friday morning/ I'm trying to keep my back from wall..." of 'Trains To Brazil' with its swirly keys and a cross between Van Morrison and Billy Joel - a life-affirming tune to help us through this paranoid age of terror.

The ecstasy of 'San Paulo' takes us to the wire and curfew with the rollicking pompomed drums and an evening of exhilaration - "...thrown across water/ thrown across water/ thrown across water/ like a stone...", but spoils come with a tune they've only done once before for the Jo Whiley show "So it may be shit..." but is in fact a cover of Franz Ferdinand's 'Take Me Out' as a wonderfully off-kilter gypsy-rock tune to close this evening of bon homie and peachy tunes from a band with dynamos stuck up there arses - "So if you're lonely/ You know I'm here waiting for you...".