Music
Frightened Rabbit with the RSNO
Paisley Abbey
Fiona McKinlay
****
FOR fans of boozy breakup balladeers Frightened Rabbit – that their songs sound incredible with an orchestral backing – is not news; they’d done it before but never on this scale or in this setting. The RSNO was, as would be expected, pretty flawless in its execution of the tracks it accompanied; and the arrangements composed by conductor John Logan are magnificent.
Playing nine songs together, the never-played-live-before 400 Bones and the not-uncommon Floating In The Forth sounded most spectacularly transformed by the orchestra. The latter’s introduction sounded like a stunning movie score to a new beginning.
Woke Up Hurting was a rare weaker point, with Scott Hutchison’s vocals slightly out of time with the orchestra and his brother Grant on drums. The singer has such depth and passion in his voice, though, that it almost still sounded great.
The band was more relaxed during six unaccompanied songs in the middle of the set. Both between and during these, Scott revelled in breaking church etiquette. He seemed to enjoy the expletives that punctuate some of the band’s most-loved anthems and was chuffed with himself on the opening line of Head Rolls Off: “Jesus is just a Spanish boy’s name.”.If the minister was in the house, you can be sure he winced at that one.
The setlist skewed towards Frightened Rabbit’s treasured second album, Midnight Organ Fight, but perhaps they could have used the unique setting as a good excuse to pull out a few suitable gems from the three great albums they’ve since released. Not performing Holy in an abbey was a missed opportunity, and Die Like A Rich Boy would have been magical with all those violins.
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