I don't go to rock concerts much.
Mostly because they are too expensive.
For the same outlay as going to listen to some moderate muso, I could buy a Ryanair flight to somewhere warm and have money left over to buy dinner. I also loathe the concept of having to pay a booking fee to buy a ticket.
When I used to blag free tickets in the old days, my favourite bit was when some rock personage would carry out the formal part of the evening.
Lost in a haze of drugs and alcohol, he would say: “Thank you …” and look down to the stage floor where a roadie had written in big letters “… Glasgow”.
Katy Perry, a young lady singer, took this process much further this week when she had an extensive list of reminders at her SECC concert.
Key words included neds, thugs, weegies and Frank McAvennie.
Sadly, we have no detailed report on Ms Perry’s repartee and do not know if she mentioned Mr McAvennie, the footballing Lothario, in connection with burdz.
Celtic, Rangers, and Partick Thistle were understandably on the list.
But so were Motherwell FC. I imagine the chanteuse said something along the lines of: “It’s a little-known fact that the Steelmen once defeated the mighty Flamengo from Brazil 9-2. Mind you, that was when Ian St John was at centre forward.”
Ms Perry’s crib sheet also had the information: “Enemies are Edinburgh and England”. There was a reference to the annoying fact that Scottish pound notes are regularly not accepted down south. She may have added that she was happy to take any amount of Scottish sterling in return for her songs.
She is to be congratulated for doing her homework. When Ms Perry plays Aberdeen in October she will no doubt be fully briefed on Furryboots City. There will be reference to rowies, Annie Lennox, the Northern Lights and the terrible price of fish. She will say to the audience: “Fit like quines and loons?”
She has no concerts scheduled for Edinburgh and will remain blessedly ignorant of Auld Reekie, salt’n’sauce and ghost trams.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article