Russ Ballard / Marley Davidson The Caves, Edinburgh 9th October 2022

Russ seemed in very relaxed and jovial mood from the start, reminding us that this was his second gig in Scotland this year after an earlier appearance in Kinross. He peppered the set with stories and anecdotes and was very entertaining, even recalling playing with Argent at an Edinburgh venue called ‘The White Elephant’ in the early 70s. I had to google that one but he’s correct; it was in East Fountainbridge and later became Valentinos.

The set was full of under-rated gems like the opener ‘Rene Didn’t Do It’ which Russ described as his “1978 punk song”. We also got ‘It’s My Life’ and ‘Dream On’ before he slipped in a new one called ‘Time Machine’ from his current album. He’s definitely still got it and his band members were great on harmony vocals too. I had previously seen Russ at a show in London where he was backed by Brian May, Rick Wakeman and Kerry Ellis but he’s still got a top-notch set of players behind him. The metaphorical time machine then took us right back to proto-metal chart botherer ‘Hold Your Head Up’ by Argent – the only song played tonight that Russ did not write.

He definitely did write ‘Liar’ for Three Dog Night – one of the early US hits that helped him buy his first house apparently. If he’s still got the house there are a few others that will keep the bank balance ticking over if he needs to build an extension. That includes songs like ‘New York Groove’ and ‘Since You Been Gone’ which were big crowd pleasers this evening, as they were when Russ played HRH AOR a few years ago. Perhaps the most powerful performance of the night was ‘The Fire Still Burns’. He started it with a Knopfler-esque guitar intro then solemnly intoned the words “Afghanistan”, “Iraq” and “Ukraine” before a blistering rendition of the song.

It seems that Russ will be 77 years old this month but he does not look it. He’s either the Peter Pan of rock or the royalties help to buy a lot of moisturiser and hair dye. His voice was in terrific nick too – not least on the Colin Blunstone hit ‘I Don’t Believe in Miracles’, which Russ had been told could not be a hit as it had a “negative” title.

Of course, he finishes with the benediction in the form of ‘GGRNR2U’ and an encore of ‘I Can’t Hear You No More’. I wish I could write as well as he does!

What do you get if you cross an American motorcycle with a deid cinema dug? Marley Davidson, of course, and that’s the name of the young man who opened the evening with a quite stunning support set.

He made an unassuming entrance and it took a while for the audience to pick up on the delicate piano intro to his epically long song ‘Wonder’ and then a few jaws hit the floor when he started to

sing and his fallen-choirboy vocals echoed around the high-ceilinged room. It’s very hard to actually describe the music. How about “solo piano doom prog ballads” for starters? That first song was very quiet and intense and so the music was particularly susceptible to interference from loudly chattering bell-ends at the back, although they were quickly shushed by those who wanted to get their heads around what was going on. The eventual end of the song was greeted by a bit of a stunned silence but the self-deprecating Marley re-assured folks that the rest of the songs were shorter “but not any happier”.

He did not lie. ‘The Statue Man’ was intriguing and at its most lively point (relatively speaking) Marley appeared to briefly adopt a Jethro Tull flamingo stance. By now, the audience were getting tuned in and starting to realise that there was something special going on here.

‘Stare’ was good but then Marley threw in a cover of The Korgis’ ‘Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime’ that suited him vocally and was really effective and suitably gloomy. It seemed random but it wasn’t. Marley has been working with The Korgis on a new song and there is footage on his Facebook page of him singing it with them onstage at The Waterloo in Blackpool. As he told it, he felt a bit exposed being out there with them without his keyboard... “a bit like Beyonce but not beautiful or successful”. Bless him – he was probably never going to be in a boy-band but he’s very talented and has a lovely line in eccentric stage patter. Later in the evening, he seemed to enjoy Russ Ballard’s ‘I Don’t Believe in Miracles’ and a Marley version of that could be spectacular too. Over to you sir.

At times you pick up a hint of Judie Tzuke at her most ephemeral, or a proggy Keane, but it is definitely music that you need to concentrate on. It is pretty bleak stuff though, but he is from Dundee after all. There’s a debut mini-album on the way and the token attempt at a radio-friendly “single” is the excellent ‘Island of Dreams’. Before finishing, Marley reminded everyone that Russ Ballard was next with ‘God Gave Rock and Roll to You’...”and thank God for that after this depressing trip” as he put it. The last song was ‘Fragile’ but frankly, they all were.

I don’t think you can do justice to Marley’s work in words so it’s probably best to check out his social media. He won’t be to everyone’s taste but he certainly got the full attention of a captivated crowd here and received a very warm ovation at the end.