You might have been forgiven for imagining that there was a portrait in Rab Noakes's attic, because the bloke who arrived on stage here was supposed to be in his sixties.
Looking and sounding about half that age, he embarked on a thoroughly engaging journey through 40 years of song writing. Having fronted the rapturously-received Bringing It All Home shows at this year's festival, in which he and a selection of artists remembered his great friend, Gerry Rafferty, Noakes was not in the mood to perform too many covers, so that the impressively-filled Strathclyde Suite was treated to a wide selection of his own work.
Backed by an excellent band, which included ex-Pilot Davey Paton on bass, Rod Clements from Lindisfarne on guitar and mandolin, and Fraser Speirs on the mouthie, he played songs from his first album, Do You See The Lights, released in 1970, all the way through to his latest, Standing Up, released in 2010. He shared numerous tales of his experiences in the business and some of the most compelling work was when he played solo. No More Time, a beautifully poignant tune for and about Gerry Rafferty, was particularly impressive.
There were turns from his friends, too. Clements played a solo Meet Me On The Corner and folk veteran Jimmie MacGregor revisited his skiffle roots with Freight Train, a song he recorded with the Chas McDevitt Group in the 1950s, leaving before the song became a huge hit. One of the highlights came in the encore, with an excellent reading of Dylan's Mississippi and, all told, this was a thoroughly enjoyable evening from one of Scotland's great songsmiths.
HHHH
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