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Review: 'Goodbye Mr MacKenzie'
'Live 2019: A Night in the Windy City'   


-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '26th March 2021'

Our Rating:
I’ve never got Goodbye Mr MacKenzie. No, that’s not entirely true: I’ve just never really got their appeal, or, moreover, the fervour of their fanbase. It does very much appear to be a Scottish thing: Scots tend to have a special level of fandom reserved for Scottish bands, and it’s largely true that their appeal – and fervent fanbase – is very much domestic.

Their active years, between 1989 and 1995 yielded 4 studio albums, which were extremely successful – again, largely at home, and much of the subsequent broader interest has come about due to the global profile of their former keyboardist, Shirley Manson, which in turn followed the success of short-lived side-project Angelfish. Manson, of course, didn’t feature as part of the reunion, and so doesn’t appear on this album.

Anyway: reconvening for a sold-out tour of Scotland in 2019 – plus a London date – the band made a lot of old fans very happy, and ‘Live 2019: A Night in the Windy City’ captures the culmination of that tour, where they played to a packed out Glasgow Barrowland – where else? It’s fair to say that as venues go, the Barras is truly renowned venue, and THE premier venue in Scotland. Not without good reason: for a large capacity venue, it has an intimate feel, and good – loud – sound.

This 13-track document of the occasion contains all the ‘hits’ and fan favourites, concluding with a three-track run of ‘Goodbye Mr MacKenzie’, ‘The Rattler’, and ‘Now We Are Married’. Along the way, there’s ‘Candlestick Park’, ‘Good Deeds’ and ‘Green Turn Red’ which feature in a tight performance brimming with energy and well-recorded, with mixing courtesy of band founder and vocalist Martin Metcalfe. And it’s clear that they’re playing to an up-for-it crowd… something that’s a feature of gigs in Scotland in general. If you’ve never attended a gig in Scotland, it’s hard to really convey the experience. Lively would be an understatement, and even ‘rabid’ falls short of most outings. There are some absolute heidcases, but there’s never a lacklustre crowd north of the border, and that’s a fact.

It’s all highly proficient, and for fans who needed another live album after ‘Live on the Day of Storms’ (1993), ‘The River Sessions’ (2005), and ‘The Rattler: Live ‘91’ (2009), this will no doubt be more than satisfactory and a cause of excitement. But objectively, it is very much the sound of a band rooted in that late 80s stadium rock style with a lot of bluster but not so much substance.
  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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