Sam Gibb, live at the voodoo club
June 12, Edinburgh, Scotland.
We arrived at the Voodoo Club around 7:00 .pm. and the band were finishing off their sound check, so we sat in the hallway to listen to them. The band members were very friendly and we spoke with them all, Nick and Laz were particularly chatty and Laz told me he thought Edinburgh was a beautiful city, he told me that he took Miami for granted as he had grown up there.. He also said he had a surprise for us later on. They spoke about staying at Linlithgow the previous evening and I was amused because the could not pronounce it properly. (They had stayed with Sue Lindsay who is a very good friend of Linda Gibb)
Yvonne arrived with her brother Herbie and I spoke with her very briefly, then Sue Lindsay arrived. After a while Sam told us to go through to the room where the gig was being held, we waited a while and then Sam’s support act, Shelly Fraley took to the stage. She had a wonderful voice and I really enjoyed listening to her. Next up was a band and I forget what they were called but two of Sue Lindsay’s sons played in this band, again I really enjoyed listening to them. And then Sam Gibb and the Cartell took to the stage, they were fabulous, much, much better than I expected them to be. Sam has a really good voice and she sounds fabulous live. The surprise Laz had for us was he came on stage in a borrowed kilt, he obviously got a huge cheer from the small audience that was there because we appreciated his efforts at being “Scottish”.
They played around 5 tracks and because we kept shouting for more, they played another song for us.
Unfortunately as I said previously, the audience was very small – it was the start of the world cup and I don’t think that helped, but everyone gave 100% and Sam also arranged for us to have a cd and t-shirt for free.
When the show finished we spoke with Sue Lindsay who told us she was just back from Miami, she had been staying with Barry and Linda and that she was pretty tired and hung over because the whole band had stayed with her the previous night, they had all played and sang and partied until after 4:00 in the morning. We told her that we were surprised that Sam had not become a big star because she was so good and she said that she felt Maurice’s death had hit her hard and it was only now that she was really getting back into her music. We then said goodbye to the band and thanked them for the show and we also said to Yvonne how amazing we thought Sam was. We were obviously keen to have our photograph taken with Sam.
The picture was taken by Herbie (Yvonne’s brother).
Everyone was so friendly and nice it really was a wonderful experience and I felt very privileged to have been able to see her live, I love her recorded music but the band sound much better live.
Hazel Reid (copyright: story and photo).