A wonderful climax to last night’s Pastels gig. As fey and as ramshackle as ever, their charm remains infectious to the extent that boys and girls (although mainly boys) of a certain age grow a little tearful whenever they play – especially as traditional set closer ‘Baby Honey’ and all its heavy reverb starts echoing across the evening; swoon.
But as an extra-special little gift, for the encore the band invited long-lost former member Aggi onto the stage for the glorious ‘Nothing To Be Done’ – and whilst that’ll mean little to around 99% of readers (and Mrs LGM plus friend for that matter, who both inexplicably left for the bar before the closing number), for the sad bastards among us, it was a real moment.
(Also, as per the band’s Twitter account, they only decided to play the track during the soundcheck. Wow, etc).
The Pastels / Nothing To Be Done
What’s that? You’ve a sudden urge to watch a Japanese interview from years and years ago with Stephen Pastel, dodgy sound, and Aggi trimming Stephen’s hair in the ‘Nothing To Be Done’ video?
Support last night was courtesy of The Wake, signed to both Factory and Sarah Records in the eighties, and very good they were too. Time for a revisit to the back catalogue, me thinks.
The Wake / O Pamela
Lazer Guided Melody - Tangents From Listening To Too Many Records 
Sounds like a great show. ‘Nothing to be done’ is my favourite track, likely because it was the song that introduced me to The Pastels via a cover done by Teenage Fanclub for a Select magazine compilation cassette tape, now forever lost to me….
And an excellent version it is too (The Fannie’s cover). Obviously Gerry was present (he’s played bass for The Pastels for a few years) – as was a very dapper Norman Blake (although sadly he didn’t clamber up to join the band this time). That’s one of the great things about Glasgow – it’s rare not to go to a gig and bump into so-and-so from this band or that.
Teenage Fanclub version:
Nice. Hasn’t Norman Blake moved to Canada though? I thought I heard he married a Canadian woman and moved to Kitchener.
Indeed. Was surprised to see him myself, but certainly him. I like to think he flew in especially.
Awesome. Must’ve been a great show.
Aye – swoonage all round (I’m such the sad twee-pop geek).