30 Aug, 2006 Simple Minds,T on the Fringe
Simple Minds
T on the Fringe
Princes Gardens, Edinburgh
Monday August 28th 2006
Edinburgh Evening News
Reviewed by Duncan Forgan / Tuesday August 29th 2006
Rating: 4 Stars
“IS everybody doin’ all right?” bellowed Simple Minds frontman Jim Kerr as the Glaswegian stadium supremos reached the conclusion of yet another enormously proportioned pomp-rock epic. He needn’t have asked.
Few bands do widescreen with as much verve, panache and enthusiasm as the Minds and their T on the Fringe curtain closer in Princes Street Gardens last night was an object lesson in giving the public exactly what they wanted.
Central to this effort was Kerr himself – the singer drawing deep from his box of crowd-pleasing tricks to keep the faithful hanging on his every word long after the sun had disappeared behind the Castle
Never the greatest mover in the world, Kerr compensated for his shoddy dancing skills by mugging the life out of everything he did. Pirouettes were pirouetted, messianic poses struck, mass-audience singalongs conducted, Kerr even found time (on several occasions) to display his middle-aged athleticism, or lack thereof, by doing a vaguely arthritic take on the splits.
All completely ridiculous of course, and drawn straight from the pages of the rock-god cliché handbook, but when you have paid 20-odd quid to see a show, you last thing you want to go and see is a plank of wood.
There’s no point in putting yourself out on a limb, however, if the music can’t back you up. Thankfully, a craftily-chosen set that mixed new material with a liberal smattering of well-loved oldies ensured that Kerr’s posturing was imbued with plenty of substance.
Although they started out in the early Eighties as arty music press darlings, it is hard to imagine the band as anything other than died-in-the wool purveyors of arms-aloft anthems – it’s what they have been doing for years, so why change the record?
Accordingly, a conveyor belt of impossibly gigantic-sounding tunes were trundled out to the mass appreciation of an audience that ran the gamut from diehard fans who mouthed every last syllable to young kids, who at least had Kerr’s antics to marvel at when the music got a bit too much.
Classics such as All the Things She Said, Glittering Prize and Speed Your Love – each one powered by the glacial riffs of guitarist Charlie Burchill and powerhouse drumming of Mel Gaynor – were all rapturously received by the crowd.
However, the biggest cheer of the night came as the distinctive driving bassline of Waterfront kicked-in, prompting more gymnastics from Kerr and a mass of punched-air salutes in the audience.
It wasn’t all quite so successful. The group have never been awfully big on sonic variety and there were moments of samey tedium away from the thrill of the better known numbers.
Lyrical subtlety fared little better, many of Kerr’s clunkier couplets would shame a sixth-form poet.
The minor gripes were quickly drowned in a wall of sound however, as the band launched into a closing salvo that took in (Don’t You) Forget About Me and Sanctify Yourself.
Kerr was having far too good a time to leave it at that however, and a four-song encore that took in two more Minds’ classics in the shape of Alive and Kicking and Someone, Somewhere in Summertime, took the gig over the two hour mark and proved conclusively that if it’s a band that gives good stadium you are after, then the Minds are your men.
(c) Edinburgh Evening News 29th August 2006
Photo courtesy of Colin Robertson / Icon Photography