The Ayrshire coastal town of Troon is known for its extensive beaches, its particularly fine fish and chip vendor, the Wee Hurrie, and now as the first date on King Creosote’s tour of the country’s less likely rock’n’roll hotspots.
Next stop, Argyll resort Dunoon (once frequented by Blur) and prepare for excitement on the streets of Alnwick and a show in Middlesbrough’s charmingly named Parochial Hall.
Provincial rather than parochial, Troon’s Town Hall is a scene of moderate civic glamour, its cascading modern chandeliers contrasting with the school chairs filling up with Kenny Anderson acolytes. Anderson has traded as King Creosote for the past two decades but has intimated that his current album I Des might be the death of him as the King. If that is the case, his naturally brittle falsetto voice will linger on.
On this stripped-back outing, he is joined by actual Des, the titular inspiration for the album. Derek O’Neill, to give him his Sunday name, is a demon on synthesizers – when they work. There is a tech fail early in the set, denuding It’s Sin That’s Got Its Hold Upon Us of its “banging electronics”. In truth, no one appears to notice as they are too wrapped up in Anderson’s confessional storytelling.
Anderson’s lyrics are both poignant and piquant. Blue Marbled Elm Trees sounds like his own sanguine eulogy (“I had the best time laughing with my girls”), while Burial Bleak finds its narrator hanging on to life out of sheer spite.
In contrast, another new album track, Susie Mullen, is quite the mover, an almost rude interruption to the soothing mantras he spins through the rest of his healing set which he describes as “an hour and a half out of my anxious life”. It was a pleasure to sail alongside him.
