BBC Rapal TV Recording

Rapal (a Gaelic word meaning Noise) is a Gaelic TV Show which is shown on Scottish BBC TV which features up and coming music acts from around Scotland and the UK. The show had many decent indie acts last year and is back this year again for a second series. If you ever saw the Music show, which was also on BBC Scotland, but in English, it follows much the same format. I popped along to Stornoway last night to see the second night of recording for the new series.

There were 4 bands on the bill; Strike the Colours, Potential Strangers, Radio Luxembourg and Amy Macdonald.

It was filmed in a TV studio, with a crowd of 60 or 70 who got free tickets there to watch.

Strike the Colours were on first, a band who i am already a fan of, and 90% of the reason for me going. They played 4 songs although they played each song twice, like every other band, for purposes of camera angles and the like. I had missed out on them performing in Stornoway a few weeks earlier as i was in Glasgow, damn you Glasgow, but i saw them last night and they were fantastic. I had seem them before earlier in the year, when they were supporting Malcolm Middleton in Glasgow, but last night they were really on form. Jenny Reeve, the lead singer, was on good form, telling stories and really interacting with the audience. They were very well received.

Next were a local band, with the lead singer (and songwriter) coming from the
birthplace of my father, the Isle of Scalpay. They were Potential Strangers, and he, the lead singer, is Donald Mackinnon, a very talented songwriter who i've known for years. They played 2 songs (twice) and were really good with the audience, telling jokes and telling what the songs were about and why they were written. The first song they played was pretty good, a Gaelic song called Liath, which means Grey in English, but the second song they played got a very very good reception from the audience, oh oh Helen. Very catchy. And humorous. Plus they had a cellist and a violin player. Extra bonus points from me.

The third band was Radio Luxembourg, a welsh pop/rock (i think) band who sang songs which had both Welsh and English lyrics. They were pretty good too, playing 5 songs, but their first one was my favourite. They didn't say what it was called, and i couldn't quite make sure but it was either "my grandmother showed me how to die" or "my grandmother showed me how to lie". Either way that family has problems. They were catchy, upbeat and had a good sound. They had good banter with the crowd, and had a good all round attitude. They sounded like a cross between the Zutons and Franz Ferdinand.

The last act was Amy Macdonald, who has been topping the charts in Scotland, and coming close to the top in the UK charts. She sang excellently, and her songs are pretty decent pop songs, but she had no enthusiasm to make it fun for the audience and played a very unvaried set. All the other bands throughout the night were swapping the instruments or had a "different" kind of set-up but hers was a pretty rigid set up (drummer, bass guitarist, lead guitarist, lead singer) and they did not change instruments or add any new sounds for any of the 5 songs she did (3 of them which they did twice). This led to most of the audience getting bored of her and some began to leave before her set was over even though she was the star attraction. She spoke only two words (thank and you) to the audience before her last song and barely smiled throughout.
She does have decent songs, and a decent rock sound, but i wouldn't pay to watch her perform like that.

AND HER BAND WAS SO FAKE. I'm guessing she didn't grow up with those guys. The drummer was a Tommy Lee wannabe/look-a-like, even down to the braces he had clipped to his trousers, and the charisma and personality this guy possessed was entirely in the tatoos he had on his arms, if they were even real! You could tell they (Amy's band) were just a record industry generic rock trio, who would be banded about from rock pop act to rock pop act. They really added nothing but competent instrument playing.

I really hated the drummer. I felt like he was the kind of person who would in 6 months, when Amy Macdonald-mania was over, peel of his Henna tatoos and become a backing dancer for some pop group created by Simon Fuller, then 6 months later, change his image again and become an R'n'B boyband singer, then 6 months later, whatever. Its not versatility, its fickleness.

She was hugely uninspiring. Rant over.

The night was good though, and i really enjoyed 3 of the acts, and Amy Macdonald was pretty good, just some things really really annoyed me about it. I shall tell you about when Rapal is on TV when i hear.

Here you can find the bands:

Strike the Colours: www.strikethecolours.com/ and www.myspace.com/strikethecolours

Potential Strangers: www.myspace.com/potentialstranger
Radio Luxembourg: www.myspace.com/radiolux
Amy Macdonald: www.amymacdonald.co.uk/ and www.myspace.com/amymacdonald

And also a link to the Rapal homepage, where you can watch last years sets online, and where you will be able to see this years too, when they are good and ready:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/radio/rapal/