Arriving at Glasgow's Carling Academy, the place looks quite a bit like Hanover's Capital. In Glasgow's grander days it must have been quite a remarkable theatre.The stage is huge and tall with plenty of head-room and rather than being set up against the back wall it build into the venue - a sure sign that this stage has always been here.

The ground-floor in front of the audience is flat but rising slightly towards the back of the place. Two thirds down the back of the ground floor rises by means of a small flight of stairs.

There is a large balcony, too but it's closed today. If it was open I would assume that Carling Academy might hold an audience of 2.500 (standing), with the balcony closed it could still be well over 1.000.
In order to improve the sound of the venue and to give the room a less bare look there are several long sheets of light-blue (or white?) fabric draped below the ceiling. I like the room very much!

Next to the stage there is a sign saying No stage surfing - Due to the risk of injury, please refrain from this activity. I think this is quite funny and I wonder if a crowd surfing attracting concert people are actually going to stick to what it says on this small white sheet of paper?!

The days before Katharina and I left for Scotland I had been in touch with ex The Silencers guitarist Jinky 'JJ' Gilmour. In late 2002 he released his first solo album and last year he had supported Bob on several British dates. He now living in Guernsey but in one of his e-mails said that he was planning to come to the Glasgow gig.

We have not seen Jinky since 1995 (I guess) and I would very much like to see him again so Katharina and I walk over to Willo who is setting up his merchandise table next to the door: 'Do you know if Jinky JJ is really going to come to the gig tonight?' we ask him. 'Well, he said he was going to come,' Willo says,'I put his name on the guest list but so far I don't think he's here yet. I think he was planning to fly in and it might be rather last minute that he gets here. I could try calling him on his mobile to see if he's on his way.' - ' Oh yeah, do so! We would really like to meet him again and it would be a shame if he came here and we missed him!'

Willo tries ringing Jinky but the phone is switched off. 'Could be he's still on the plane,' Willo combines, 'I'll try again in a little while. But I'm also sure he's going to come and see me as soon as he gets here.' - 'Thats great. When you see him, would you please tell him that we're here?' - 'Sure.' - 'Great, thanks. We'll come back in a while, too, to see if he's arrived yet.'

The concert is about to start - weve easily missed supporting Juliet Turner - and Katharina and I walk to the front of the floor to get a better view. As soon as we've found our places, the lights go off and the band takes to the stage.

And now we immediately remember why I always enjoyed going to concerts in Scotland: Both being just under 6 feet tall, we're quite a few inches taller than your average Scotsman and no matter where we stand, we've got a great view onto the stage.

Quite contradictory to the typical Hamburg concert: I remember a Hamburg gig of American band DAD (Disneyland After Dark) at which I left after about 10 minutes. No matter where I tried to stand, I couldn't see a thing of what was happening on stage. Here I think we would still be able to see sitting down!?

A few songs into the set we try Willo and Jinky again. 'I managed to catch him on his mobile,' Willo says, 'he's going to be here in about 20 minutes, he said.' - 'Great. Tell Jinky we'll be somewhere near the mixing desk.' - 'I will.' - 'Thanks.'

The concert is starting with a bunch of songs from Bobs post Boomtown Rats days: The Great Song Of Indifference, Love Or Something and A Sex Thing. For more than a decade those songs have proved to be great openers. They're such cheerful and melodic tunes that they immediately get an audience dancing, which is exactly what is happening here tonight.

Quite soon it also becomes obvious that tonight Bob is in a very talkative mood. In fact, he's talking after almost every single song. And not just saying something like, 'this was a song called so-and-so and now we are going to play a song called so-and-so' - far from that: Bob is talking like an open book!

I can not remember all he says during the gig but I remember that most of it is told in a tremendously humorous way and that the larger part of the appreciatively listening audience - mainly elderly, by the way - is really enjoying hearing him talk. In fact, it guests to the point of almost being half a spoken word show!

I don't remember ever witnessing such a talkative gig and I start wondering if - when in Germany - Bob believes that a large part of the audience would not understand his English and thus refrains from talking this much? That would be a shame, because I am convinced that - given Bob speaks a little slower and maybe avoids using too complicated words and language - most Germans would be able to understand him quite well.

In general I have heard most of the stories before, however it's usually been a much shorter and less funnier version.

The stories which impress me most are those told before Mary Of the 4th Form and Scream In Vain, which - by the way - remains to be my absolute favourite song on the Sex, Age & Death album.

So this is the story behind Scream In Vain:
In Ethiopia there is a perfect model African village called Harbo, where Bob went to when he came back to Ethiopia in 1996. This was at a time when Bob's private nightmare of a life really got to him, years which felt like wanting to howl into the great big void and he was awfully glad to escape the madness of Britains daily paparazzi hunt. He was going back to Ethiopia in order to see how some of the long-term project which Band Aid had initiated a good ten years ago where developing.
Before the times of Band Aid Harbo had existed on mainly growing an African crop called Sago (?). If the crop failed, the village had no hope of existing. And the crop failed regularly since Sago does not adjust well.Band Aid encourage the local people to try out various other types of crop and they sound found out that it was a perfect place for growing sweet yams. Now - a century later - the village was thriving.

When Bob got there and saw how well everything was going for this village, he sat down on the dirty ground, leaning his back against mud-wall of a hay thatched hut, and suddenly started to feel very strengthened by this whole experience.

Some local women came over and started to pull some of the hay of the roof of the huts in order to light a fire and cook some of the yams.

Sweet yams in the fields of Harbo
Made me feel better
They took the straw from off the roof
To make the fire catch as it should
They boil the water and they cook the roots
For them it's new - for me old fruits
Scream In Vain itself is the name of a street in Addis Ababa, which is notorious for its crime rate. If you walk down this street and get busted - which is very likely to happen - you were just to scream for help in vain.
Money in my pocket down at Scream In Vain
Come on, lambs led to the slaughter
They cut you in a second down at Scream In Vain
Come on, lambs let to the slaughter
In the song each and every musical element has to be there for a therapeutic reason, sometimes not even understood by Bob himself.

Without wanting to sound like pathetic or attempting to ingratiate myself, I feel like I understand this song more than any other of Bob's songs.

The other story which really sticks in my memory is the on of Mary Of The 4th Form: Although I have heard this story before - even in Germany! - today it is told with so many more hilarious details of how 11ish year old Bob was trying to seek the attention of the girl who is now the personal assistant to Ireland's prime minister. Apart from hopping around the dance floor like mad for quite a while, his best bet - he thought! - was to have a go at looking really cool and stylish by slowly swaying from side and side while swinging the ends of his mile-long mod style scarf.

It actually proved to have some effect on poor Mary, if maybe not the intend one as she just stared at him open-mouthed for about 2 ½ hours, until Bob finally mustered the courage of approaching and talking to her, trying to convince her that given she would let him have a go (at..whatever..?!?!!!) it would all be over in a minute and sure wasn't going to hurt as he was promising not to move, etc..

We all remember that Mary rewarded Bob's endeavours by giving him 50 p and telling him to fuck off. Apparently there is a very belated amusing ending to the story when, a few years ago, Bob found a picture of Mary in the a paper. Talking to Tony Blair and some other high-profile members of the British parliament, Mary was still tying to do the same trick: Offering someone 50 p in order to get him off her back! And, sure enough, it showed in the picture!

Other than that Bob is constantly going on about Glasgow's notoriously bad weather and about how people could possibly want to purchase a summer home in this area..?!?

Saying all this, I should possibly mention that I enjoy the concert's music just as much. This being a Best of Boomtown Rats tour there are loads of wonderful long-lost Rats songs included in the set list: Joey's On The Street Again, Someone's Looking At You, When The Night Comes, Rat Trap, Mondays, Banana Republic - part of which's story is told with a rather mocking Father Ted accent - Diamond Smiles, I Can Make It If You Can and - best of all - like Clockwork.

However, I would still love to see the day when Bob eventually remembers some of the fantastic songs on the totally underrated In The Long Grass album!!!

Other than that there is the by now habitual slot of songs from the Sex, Age & Death album - Mudslide, This One's For Me, Birthday Suit, 10:15 and the aforementioned Scream In Vain - for which Bob still retreats to within himself, not really allowing the audience in to his still brooding emotions.

In the mean-time Katharina and I have also managed to meet up with Jinky and his smartly dressed friend Jimmy. We were a bit scared not to recognise Jinky anymore but although he looks seemingly grown-up quite a bit, he still looks much like he used to ten years ago. In fact, he looks really good, agile and full of life. Yet, it is way to loud to really talk and neither of us wants to miss much of the concert either, so after we've quickly taken a picture of the three of us, talking at length will have to be postponed to after the show.

The Glasgow audience really is a stomper! Almost all of them really seem to enjoy the concert which I think is no small wonder since this is such a fantastic gig!!! When - towards the end of the show - all the old Boomtown Rats songs are played, I end up dancing with several total strangers. And this is not the jolly but rather pointless and stupid alcohol-infested hopping around, but really dancing!

What a pleasure this gig is!