Marc Almond – Hits and Pieces

Posted on March 25, 2017

I’d never been to a Marc Almond gig before, but having enjoyed seeing him at Rewind Scotland on 5 occasions, I decided that I wanted to see him live, especially as he had replied to a tweet I sent him, and announced that he wouldn’t be doing another Rewind performance.

I was delighted to hear that he had decided to perform at Perth Concert Hall, which is only 15mins away, so was desperate to get tickets as soon as they came available. The tickets were coming on sale online, via telephone or you could buy them in person . I nipped down to the concert hall before work, and waited in anticipation until the doors were opened. At the ticket desk, I saw Lisa, an ex-student of mine, and I hurriedly asked her to get me the best tickets available, amidst phone calls coming in to the others on the desk making similar requests.  She got me two centre front row tickets, as I had decided to take my daughter with me (who was just 7 years old at the time).

A few days before the gig, Emilia fractured her ankle on a trampoline, and had to wear a moonboot, but she still decided to brave the situation and came along with me.  We were in Glasgow the day before the gig, and saw some really cool rainbow roses for sale in Argyll Street, so we bought one to give to Marc and took it with us to the gig.

Supporting act was The Flicks, a raunchy all girl band from London, who Emilia quite enjoyed.  Finally, the moment I had been waiting for , and Marc arrived on stage. We got an excellent view in the middle of the front row, and were treated to a mesmerising visual delight, not only from Marc but from the projections behind him.

He sang a medley of old and more recent, Soft Cell classics such as Down in the Subway Torch and What through his more well known songs from his solo career such as Jackie, Tears Run Rings, Child Star, Something’s gotten hold of my heart and rounding off with his usual Say Hello, Wave Goodbye.

Neal X (AKA NEAL WHITMORE) formerly of Sigue Sigue Sputnik, now frontman of The Montecristos also gave an outstanding performance on guitar. His hair still looks amazing after all these years.

The enigmatic Mr Neal X

The audience were great, apart from a few well meaning crazy drunks who were sitting behind us and kept donking Emilia on the head with their inflatable flamingos, all in good spirit of course! I was dancing all night, but poor Emilia had to sit most of the time as her foot was hurting. She did throw the rose to Marc, but unfortunately he didn’t see it, and it got trampled on. She did get up and dance to the last song, Say Hello, and I captured some great footage of her which shows how close we were to Marc.

At the end of the gig, I lifted her up towards the stage, but unfortunately her moonboot was so heavy that she couldn’t quite make it!Marc kneeled down and kissed her on the forehead, which was a lovely gesture, I just wish I could have taken a photo of it, but was too busy holding her up! It was a memorable evening, and having the best seats in the house made it seem as if Marc were singing directly to us, which made things even more special. I’m so pleased that we both went, and that she can always say that she met Marc Almond and got a kiss from him. I plan to take her to many more gigs of my favourite 80s musicians so that one day she will be able to look back and remember these amazing experiences. To watch the video, please rewind the red timeline on the video below, as otherwise you will be directly to annoying ads that have nothing to do with this!

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