Fyfe Dangerfield

26/01/2010

Where's the Celtic passion? @ ABC, Glasgow

Fyfe Dangerfield
02 ABC, Glasgow
3/5

Never before has Glasgow’s grungy ABC been so devoid of atmosphere: it’s positively arid, the audience frozen to their coldly regimented rows of plastic chairs beneath the weight of an unbreakable, stony silence, while Fyfe Dangerfield pleads with them to unleash that rowdy Celtic passion he’s used to.

On a short sojourn from his day job as frontman of Guillemots, Dangerfield is touring his debut solo album, Fly Yellow Moon, recorded in a lightning six-day studio session, with a couple of tracks buffed up to Big Shiny orchestral proportions by Bernard Butler. But tonight it’s entirely stripped down to a sublime state of simplicity. Our host – snazzily-suited, if increasingly worried-sounding as he incites the mute audience to “abuse me!” at one point – swaps between guitar and piano, with a minimalist and unobtrusive two-piece string section flitting in and out of his set.

Guillemots’ compositions are a little too giddy and over-egged for my taste; so the opportunity to hear the purity of Dangerfield’s voice unadorned with their boisterousness is a treat, and his unfettered compositions have a clarity that’s overwhelmed in the fulsomeness of his band’s backing. His voice soars over the piano and strings of ‘High on the Tide’, his looped-up cover of Girls Aloud’s ‘Call The Shots’ sprints along with bounce and generates the rowdiest bout of clapping of the evening so far. Denuded of its Butler glam, ‘Faster Than The Setting Sun’ remains glorious, while there’s a bluesy swagger as he rips chords out of his guitar on ‘Great Crescendos’, B-side of single ‘She Needs Me’. Somehow, with Dangerfield all alone on the big empty stage in front of the taciturn ranks, it has almost David Lynchian undercurrents.

It should be emphasised the glacial atmosphere is not remotely Dangerfield’s fault. He’s bravely bantering his little anecdotes into the big, black void between songs. Neither is it the audience’s fault – I suspect there’s quiet reverence in the room, rather than boredom. As Dangerfield squirms on stage, I doubt they’re any happier pinioned to the floor like naughty Sunday School kids. A major miscalculation on the part of the promoter and a missed opportunity for us to commune with an unequivocally talented songwriter in what, in a smaller, warmer venue, could have been a night of wonderful intimacy.

Vicky Davidson