The Ulitmate souvenir purchase

Well it took two years, since it was first talked of, for them to get here, but it was worth the wait. Really enjoyed Aberfeldy last night. One of the best live performances I've seen. Very talented, very slick and with loads of humour.

It was a very late start, the support didn't come on till after 11 and Aberfeldy untill midnight. (Which is way past this pair of old farts bedtime and we did struggle not to fall asleep whilst waiting.) Well, I say support but it was actually Sandy Write backed by Aberfeldy. Sandy Write was excellent, great lyrics. Haven't encountered him before but will be tracking down a CD soon. Steven thought that he may have written a couple of the tracks that Aberfeldy have recorded, but he wasn't sure.

Aberfeldy themselves were superb. Despite having to cope with the madness of a Friday night Kirkwall crowd half of whom I reckon had never heard of Aberfeldy. Odd things that were happening in the crowd as follows:

1) Rugby Sevens weekend, so there was a large number of drunken testosterone laden eedjits there.
2) Orkney audiences are incapable of not talking. Be warned of this if you ever attend a gig here. I think it's mainly due to most folk knowing at least a quarter of the folk in the crowd, so a lot of catching up to do.
3) Man doing cartwheels in the middle of the dance floor.
4) Various people buying the band rounds of drinks whilst they're playing (not really a problem)
5) 6ft 7 rugby geezer carrying 3 women at the same time through the crowd.
6) Chains of females weaving through the crowd holding hands, I assume in case they get lost on the way to the toilet.
7) Man dressed in a short floral print dress and straw hat carrying a pink keyboard under his arm.

However Aberfeldy never flinched at any of this and managed to have the joint jumping. They delivered most of the songs from both of their albums and rounded off their performance with a fantastic rendition of "Heliopolis by Night". We all then went through the ritual of encouraging them back on for an encore to be treated to the best version of 'Night fever' I've ever heard. They then asked if everyone liked 'dodgy cover versions' and launched into 'Delilah.

I'm afraid we had to leave at that point as it was now 1.30am and we had told our babysitter we'd be bakc by 1. At the point we left the building the band were still doing mad cover versions with most of the crowd now doing cartwheels, they may be still....!

A brilliant night all round. And the ultimate souvenir? An Aberfeldy tour TEATOWEL! A great idea that made me laugh. I hope it will dry our dishes for many a year to come.