The Twenty First: "Moonings"

The Twenty First: "Mooning".

Sorry about the late show due to the Springsteen and subsequent swine flu, but you can rest assured that this one was worth the wait. In our longest show for a while, we lament the passing of a national hero, review the new Frank Bruno Movie, the audio-described Transformers: Revenge of the Falling Earth Movie, the Hermione's Development Movie, and some place called Ketchup. We also debate the truth of the moon landings, whether Alan should be renamed Captain Birdseye and introduce our tragic Twenty First Competition.

Our Glasgow band of the week are the energetic Tenemants
(www.myspace.com/thetenemants) and we also cram in a great track sent in by one of our loyal listeners. Enjoy...

Bruce Springsteen in Glasgow and some snotty apologies

We were due to have been recording the new show tonight, a day late as I was at the Bruce Springsteen gig at Hampden Park Glasgow last night, but I've woken up feeling not unlike a poorly swine flu victim - snotty, sneezy, weak, over-reacting.

So I'm afraid we've pushed back the 21st episode to Sunday, and it should be available to download on the same day. In the meantime, keep the comments and emails coming in (fortheloveofglasgowpodcast@googlemail.com), and as soon as the blood disappears from inside my eyeballs I'll be sure to take a look at them.

As for Springsteen, yet another outstanding gig!

The man fair puts in a shift - played for three solid, sweat-invoking hours without a break, which isn't bad for a wee laddy turning 60 this year (bearing in mind how broken I looked just having walked home from the gig!).

He and the legendary E Street Band, including the mighty favourite Clarence "Big Man" Clemons who got a roar every time he even moved, entertained a typically deafening Glasgow crowd (I've never seen so much of the audience at Hampden cram onto the pitch despite having seated tickets - a reflection I'd imagine of the effort & energy coming from the stage) with some of his spell-binding classics, but other than Born to Run, the standout for me was what could be only best described as a Song for the Credit Crunch - Hard Times Come Again No More - a working class song sung by a working class hero for a working class City in need of a break.

(as Alan would say, songs from the streets - the lyrics could easily be about his own tough upbringing in Bearsden!)

Near the end of the gig, having seen the whole band revel in & appear pretty surprised by the pulsating waves of energy from the crowd throughout the gig, Springsteen said that next time they won't wait so long to come back.

Aye pal, if you're no back next year ah'll be ragin!

Put all that nonsense to one side though. The thing that really won it for me last night was all the wacky guys walking around on the pitch selling booze to the drunken masses, with some wacky contraption on their back I'll be yapping about on the next show, hopefully having purloined one for myself in the meantime!

So until then I'm off for a lie down and a quick check of the NHS site to see how long I've got...

The Killers at SECC Glasgow

Superb gig on Friday night.

Turned up. Had a hotdog. Tomato sauce & mustard. Watched Louis XIV tear it up as usual (although I prefer them in a smaller venue as they're not yet used to the big stage). Then watched the Killers, your man Flowers beginning to look more comfortable on stage.

And I watched the p*ss getting taken out of a guy in front of us, as he was dancing like the Bear in the Big Blue House. And then there was a technical fault when the background track stopped. And then I jumped on stage and talked about For The Love of G...lasgow. And then the crowd boo'd and I was beaten up by security staff. And then I had another hotdog. And then your man Flowers thanked the crowd for being the best in the world. And then I said "you're welcome", but he didn't hear me. And then I went home.

You know, just the usual.

Gigs in Glasgow just can't be beaten. Take away all the nonses who miss half the gig trying to catch it on their mobile phones, the YouTubes, and they'd be perfect. I've written about this before on the site. Coming up in Glasgow I've got Metallica, Joe Bonamassa, U2, Bruce Springsteen and whole load of smaller gigs in between.

This is why in these here parts they call me The Great Glaswegian Man of Music.

They don't really though.