Eric Bogle @ The Arches

A pair of tubby, sixty year old Scottish ex-pats from Australia may not sound like an exciting prospect, but Eric Bogle and his "band", John Munro, certainly know how to entertain a crowd. Bogle's strength has always lain in his ability to combine the emotional with the humorous and the angry in his superbly written songs, and so comic ditties about randy chihuahuas sit comfortably alongside laments for old people dying alone, not to mention folk standards like The Green Fields of France and Waltzing Matilda]. Eric and John's well honed banter keeps the appreciative crowd chuckling heartily, even if it does eat up a lot of potential song time. Being the last night of his Scottish tour he'd wanted to come up with something special, and sent the crowd home greeting happily with Leaving Caledonia, a song that he'd finished writing just the day before. [Paul Greenwood]