You have an unfair advantage

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Tom Vek, with guests Breton, @ The Classic Grand, Glasgow, 14-06-11.

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'Where the fuck is Tom Vek?'

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Too bad. Your advantage. Aye, well, you can stop the wondering, the moaning and the waiting. It's now over. The pause button is, well, unpaused. Press play. Play. Press. Play press. Play. But how early is too early? To get here is enough and all you can do. New hair cuts are displayed (x2) and a quick stop for food and you march on, tickets stapled to twitching hands. Tense. Anxious. Expecting. As well as remembering, of course, for you have been here before. 'Second gig in, like what, six years? Jeezo.' But too early is too early - still soundchecking - so a walk is required, up Bridge St. And, ah, Whitesnake are in town this evening as well, up at the Academy. Choices? Hipstah crowd or soft metal crowd? Gulp. No. Just no. Even I can't fit into a 1988 tour T-shirt that badly. The poor quality patches wouldn't cover-up the awful power-chords. So, you shuffle about, in reverse, and just as you are walking up the stairs who else but he, himself, passes you going down the stairs. Hair slick. Towered. Clothes very preppy New England. Glasses styled, framing. Vek. Like a madeover nephew of Action Man, dressed by Tom Ford. You manage to keep your mouth shut, and just whisper some blessing or other, to the man standing guard by the merchandise stall. He is here. Tonight. Ah saw him, so ah did. Standing. Standing tall, at a vantage point stage right, your feet, your entire body, just can't stop moving. Swaying hips, buckling limbs, a damp forehead. Too old for all this. Please. Or are you really? It's difficult to capture non-blurry images for sweet keepsakes when you just can't stop moving. The beats. It was, it still is, all about the beats. The vocals, hmmm, possibly, yes... But the beats, the layers, the loops, it's a lift-off... and this is just 'guests', Breton. As for Vek, opening the set with 'C-C (You Set The Fire In Me)' is a bold move. I mean, it's just where we were, talking about the beats, back in the dissolving, disarming, October late-afternoons of 2005 when Oran Mor was the place to be. The old, the new. All spill forth. The vintage cases are unpacked and dusted off, adding to the more recent shop deliveries that sell tunes, tracks, songs to change a life, to cause, yes, a pleasured seizure. All possibilities feature this evening in a disordered riot of smiling lips, mislaid cues, curious projections and unfocussed endings. Keyboards are sounding like phasers set to stun, disabling all doubters, not that many are actually present in this misty weegie greenhouse. The bass just kills it, scooping your insides to the outside. It was always his instrument of choice, really. And then there is Vek, finding his way centre stage. He says few words, but how should he have to when his look says it all? Sleek, shined, branded. A curious mix of George Falconer on a day off and/or Clark Kent when he got bold, that time, with Lois Lane, though our man is slightly smaller, in a slender size. He is clearly making up the treasured time he wants back; back doing this little thing called life up on a stage near you. Tune after tune comes at you; 'If You Want', 'World Of Doubt', 'I Ain't Saying My Goodbyes' (some of us believed you, Tom), 'A Chore', 'Nothing But Green Lights'. It just goes on and on and yet, somehow, it's over by 9.52pm, and that includes the minutes-as-hours of encore/no encore teasing. Lights up and out. There is to be no encore or slight return, tonight. 'You have an unfair advantage... too bad!' is a refrain that carries you all the way home, clutching posters and a camera with a very few non-blurry images to stare at, for a wee while, over a nice cup of tea and a sit down. The sitting down though. Sheesh. Your body shivers and shakes; still dancing, dancing, dancing with a clear answer to the question: Tom Vek has tamed Glasgow for an evening and Birmingham will be similarly swept under the carpet. For that's exactly where the fuck Tom Vek will be next - who cares where he has been? Look ahead, be aroused people. This music matters.

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Tom Vek - 'Too Bad' (3.51)

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Go see Tom play and buy his latest record. This is also worth the attention of your ears, aye.

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