Celtic Connections: Mid-song, mid-set on Friday's gig, Lloyd Cole forgot his words. Fair enough, it happens. But he made a joke afterwards which got me thinking. He said something along the lines of: "You always know you're at a real Lloyd Cole concert when I forget some lyrics."

DAVE PRATER
Mid-song, mid-set on Friday's gig, Lloyd Cole forgot his words. Fair enough, it happens. But he made a joke afterwards which got me thinking. He said something along the lines of: "You always know you're at a real Lloyd Cole concert when I forget some lyrics."

To be honest, I had, up until that point, began to wonder if I had been listening to an imposter for 45 minutes. Sure, it looked like the Lloyd Cole I remembered of 20 years ago. But, unless my memory fails me, it didn't particularly sound like the Lloyd Cole of old.

Without wanting to sound unnecessarily cruel, there wasn't a whole lot of good things happening in this solo show. Minus a backing band, the evening was just a little too low-key to hold interest.

While covering the gamut of his career, it was, of course, the Commotions material which the audience appreciated most. But even the arrangements of hits such as Rattlesnakes, Forest Fire and Lost Weekend were underwhelming and sung without any great enthusiasm. The material from his new collection, Antidepressant, while attempting to rekindle the clever, verbose wordplay so admired in the past, came across as strained and self-indulgent.