Wednesday 01/10/03 Arab Strap @ Academy 2 Liverpool

A 70-odd congregation gathers amongst the gloom to quite literally offer a hug and a pint with a few scruffy Scots blokes, a violinist and a cellist. Life appears rather sluggish until a pounding bass drum kicks up a smidgeon of activity alongside a deeply, deeply upset rasping vocal.

Heavily bearded Aidan Moffat paces and laments like a cheerless hybrid of Shane McGowan and Roddy Womble. Lumbering down-in-the-dumpsness is only interrupted for roughly five minutes as he enquires as to whether we’ll be dancing to the next number – which has the potential to come close to punk-funk Johnny Cash – sadly, nobody dances. Just as quickly back onto the turgid melancholia and you really do start to feel lost on a bleak Grampian hillside, battered by the wind and hail and begin to think how attractive it is to take that little step off the edge of this steep arête slope; let’s give it a go. End the terminal misery.

Problematically, what occasionally might serve as an exclusive pondering through the sad subtleties of life, all too easily turns out to be miserablism in abundance – and unfortunately, one can really only take so much of it. The shame is though, stage-banter shows Moffat can be a charismatic chap when he wants to be, but the wit-numbing repetition of depression from an overlong set-list only serves to drag down the soul. Depictions of desolate and violent provincial Scottish towns, heartbreak and disillusion, and all-round unhappiness has never seemed like it could ever inspire someone to rewrite ‘Ode To Joy’; it’s not supposed to and it never will, but at least you’d want them to give a damn about you – the punter – and show that through all that sadness, there is fire. Irksome.

Photo by Sakura Henderson