June 2 - Jad Fair @ Stereo

Jad Fair is probably best known in the UK indie scene as the dude who sang on the last Teenage Fanclub album, apart from that little is probably known. The album with Teenage Fanclub is well worth checking out, different from other TFC stuff mainly by Jads unique lyrical style but still an excellent addition to your cd collection.

Based on this excellent cd and a visit to Jads website (www.jadfair.com) we decided to check him out playing at Stereo in Glasgow.

£5 a ticket and two support bands - you really can't argue with that and all 3 acts were very different. The audience also contained some Scottish Indie legends well worthy of a mention - Stephen Pastle, Isobel Campbell, Bill Wells and Gerard Love and Norman Blake from Teenage Fanclub. Although seriously tempted, I resisted talking to them and making a fool of myself, which I have been known to do in the past!

Anyway, firstly apologies to thye first band as I can't honestly remember the name (sorry guys) but they consisted of two guys and some rather nice computer generated electronica. Nice.

Next up was cabaret time with Alleschwindle. A band from the east, which turned out to me closer to Edinburgh than the singers Russian accent suggested! Some funny tunes and theatrics and they moved me enough to spend a fiver on one of their cd.

Finally at 11pm Jad made his entrance, with only a drummer and one other musician who played guitar, bass and best of all human beatbox. Jad is an artist so I'm not going to slag off any of his performance but suffice to say the conventional indie tunes went down a treat but the scretching, moaning poems were a bit hard to get into!

All in all a good night and it was nice to catch up with my mate Stuart who has just moved back to Glasgow from Newcastle. Welcome home!

Al