I saw some great gigs in 2010. Off the top of my head; Primal Scream, Wilko Johnson, Little Barrie, Mose Allison, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Ian Siegal, The Blockheads, Goldfrapp, Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, The Slits, and the Alabama 3. Some memorable moments, but none to match emotional impact of September’s South Bank show from Edwyn Collins.
I loved Edwyn’s band Orange Juice in the early eighties. When everyone else was hiding behind fringes and trenchcoats, playing dark industrial funk, OJ were deliberately frothy and playful, using chord structures that drew on vaudeville and musical theatre, and lyrics that refreshed the lexicon of young love.
In 2005, Edwyn suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage. His family and friends are told that if he recovered, there will be little left of the man they knew and loved. Unable to move half of his body, he can’t use or understand language, and has lost all ability to order thought and process.
Watching Edwyn shuffle onstage using a stick, announce his set in a speaking voice that still bears the mark of his paralysis, then sing songs that were part of my teens in a baritone as rich as ever made me – and, I suspect, the majority of those present – ponder the bizarre lottery that is our physical health, and reflect that ‘there, but for the grace of …….’.
I’ve just read Falling and Laughing, by Grace Maxwell, Edwyn’s wife, about -briefly - her life as a pop star’s missus and manager, and - at great length - her painstaking role in his long recovery. As at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, an enormous lump appeared in my throat, and I had to battle to hold back the tears.
Such is the degree to which the victory of science over nature has developed our expectations, come the onset of bad weather or natural disaster, the nation unites in allocating blame. Twenty-four-hour news shifts seamlessly from airport-bound holidaymakers expressing their ‘disgust’ at the ‘disgrace’ of their delayed light to Florida to Pakistani familes of ten just starting their second winter under corrugated iron.
Science hasn’t yet given us the formula for luck. Watching Edwyn perform, you suspect that he might just think he’s the luckiest man on earth. Then you’ll wonder what that makes you.
