The Dogs D'Amour - Glassic Grand - 01/03/13 (Glasgow)

One of the good things about going to gigs with my girlfriend is that very often the bands I drag her to see are an unknown quantity to her.

She gets this one hundred percent fresh perspective of them.

There's no baggage carried, no bench mark that they have to meet for her.

She sees them through totally fresh eyes and that allows me to throw comments at her and if I'm wearing rose tinted nostalgia glasses she can knock them right off.

Most of the time it's a pleasure to watch her standing there stunned by how great the bands are, and witness how they can still get the blood pumping around someone who has come to them as an unknown quantity.

It was like that a few nights ago when we went to see the reformed Dogs D'Amour.

The real deal with Tyla, Steve, Jo and Bam back in the saddle.

I went with my old mucker, partner in crime, and extra appendage from back in the day Douglas Grierson who had similar to myself dragged his better half Rochelle McConnell along to ensure that she got her Dogs cherry popped in style.

The last time this line up were together must have been about twenty two years ago, but it felt like it was yesterday.

There was nothing nostalgic about it at all.

It was too fresh to be something that echoed down through the years from the past.

You could very easily imagine that they had sat their instruments down after a band practice the day before and just bent down to pick them up for the gig the next night.

The band must be rock and roll time lords bending the universe to their will.

Imagine reading a book and halfway through it a good chunk of the pages had been glued together, but you just skipped that and kept going and it didn't matter.

It was like that.

There's loads of water that has run under the bridge between the time these guys stepped away from each other, but there's no hassle in picking it up from where we last left them.

This was like a best of the best and more set, with everything and kitchen sink thrown in.

There's times that some people can bemoan the inclusion of the obligatory new tracks when a band reform, but I've got to say that they were a seamless addition, and while I'm very impressed with the studio versions the live experience actually wipes the floor with them.

It's actually difficult to convey how good the band were.

No matter how much praise I could care to honestly heap on them it would still fall far short of capturing the essence of the night.

There's an intangible quality to a live show that only rarely appears.

There's good shows, excellent shows, breathtaking performances and then there are the gigs that are transcendentally good.

After decades of going to see bands you can count yourself lucky if you manage to attend one or two like that.

This was one of those gigs.

Every single preconceived notion of how good, or even bad, they could be was irrelevant.

Simultaneously the show lasted forever and was over far too soon.

Obviously I danced like a loon.

I probably expended enough energy to support a small town while at the same time losing weight like a marathon runner.

I sang myself hoarse and drank so much that my liver was stunned.

I could have used a cattle prod on it and got the same result.

Two days after the show and it is only now that I can feel it stirring and whispering 'never again' to me.

I'm not going to tell it just now, but if the band come back there will be a round two and this time it's going down hard.

Hello liver, meet the mat and get acquainted with it as I count you out you contrary little bastard.

The Dynamite Jet Saloon is now open for business and the first round is on me.

Keep them coming barkeep.

This is going to get messy.

Wiki

PS. Mucho gracios for the sterling company on the night. We are all stars in our own nightsky.