Leith Festival Sessions: Aberfeldy @ LE3 @ Ocean Terminal

A respectable, if rather modest crowd gathers for the last of the Leith Festival Sessions.

Article by Barry Jackson | 10 Jul 2007

Welcome to Ocean Terminal: half a million square feet of shopping space, four rock n roll bands... and you! Tucked away in the corner of Leith's enormo-drome shopping mall, LE3 is a music venue Jim, but not as we know it, and it's surprising that only one of the bands on the bill allude to the Spinal-Tap-esque nature of the environment. Still, a respectable, if rather modest crowd gathers for the last of the Leith Festival Sessions.

Whoever described The Valkarys (2/5) as "the Scottish Libertines" possibly needs their head examined, as their plodding, half-arsed set never rises above a pedestrian pace. Interminable squeedly-dee guitar solo following interminable squeedly-dee guitar solo does not a great gig make; their cause not being helped by a drummer that is so out of time he might as well be playing in a different venue, on a different night.

Things liven up a little with the onset of The Jackals (3/5); a septet who condense all their evident influences into a big, melodic, if at times a little messy, sound. Their frontman Scott Wallace gets the crowd up off their backsides with a little charm and a soulful wail of a voice, while a dancing, Bez-a-like trumpeter keeps everything on the up beat.

Next up come the no-strangers-to-these-pages Amplifico (4/5) who don't disappoint. Donna Macocia is certainly possessed with a great voice, which the murky PA system isn't doing justice to, but what stops the band from being Coldplay fronted by KT Tunstall is guitarist Ross Kilgour who keeps pulling ever more interesting guitar effects from his bag of tricks and a powerful rhythm section who make sure the audience is never less than attentive for their duration.

The future seems uncertain for headliners Aberfeldy (4/5), who arrive on-stage minus their female contingent. "We're having some problems at the moment," sighs Ross Riley with genuine understatement, but they still manage a solid set including old favourites such as Vegetarian Restaurant, all with the aid of a very generous and evidently very capable friend of the band filling in the large musical gaps left by the ladies with aplomb. Where they go from here though, seems anyone's guess. [Barry Jackson]

www.aberfeldys.com
www.myspace.com/amplifico
www.myspace.com/jackalsmusic
www.myspace.com/thevalkarys

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