Scottish Folk music... not exactly my strongest point to be honest. I like folk music, I like Scotch Whisky (the real one I mean - that is Single Malt...Glenmorangie and Laphroaig especially... ups, wrong topic I guess...) - but that's about me and Scotland so far. Almost, that is... I know a bit about Scottish football... and history...OK. Back to topic... May 2nd - Cafe International in Essen. We're into World Music, we go to almost every concert in the Cafe International - that is, when we are around and available. Tonight - Jim Malcolm, a Scottish Folk Singer - that's what the program announced. We arrived a bit earlier, as usual - quite empty that evening... so I did what I always and everywhere love to do - watch people sitting around us and try to imagine stories about them. Next to us there is a young man we have not seen there yet - well, if you go to that place regular, sooner or later you get to know the faces... or at least you find out that they mostly suite into certain categories. Not this one... he looks like a very conservative person... by mimicry, by the way he dresses... I wonder what might have made him come to this place for this concert. I will find out later...
There is a quiet man in black clothes hanging around, he comes up to the stage, steps down again... hmh, looks like the photo in the program. Might be Jim Malcom... About 8 PM - the guy in black is on stage again, he takes the mike... and speaks German! Well, not perfect... but much better than we expected and he himself thinks! In his short presentation the boss of the Cafe International says the he is really sorry that there are not too many visitors that evening - they would not know what they miss... how right he was...!
Jim starts to sing. It's kinda magic... After 2 or 3 songs he's really got the audience in his hand. Including us. And the conservative young man... he smiles! Jim smiles too... I think he can sense that the audience is really following him... Break. Most artists - even in the Cafe International, GREND - will take the chance for a break... not Jim! He stays there, in the audience, talking to everyone. Signing his CDs. The "conservative" young man talks a lot with Jim - he seems to be a real Scotland Insider...
Second part of the concert... Jim sings a few classics, and a few of his favourites. Scottish classics, Robert Burns... and the - I must say now "former" - conservative young man turns into a real lead singer - he sings out loud, and is the only one in the audience that seems to really know the lyrics of the Robert Burns songs! And he is not only smiling, but laughing now!
By now, Jim can play with us whatever he wants to... we're in his hands. Clapping... singing... listening. Laughing... smiling. Feeling well. So well.
But time goes on - as all happy moments, this one seems to be coming to an end much too soon. But not that soon...! Jim has to come back to stage 3 times. And if it would not have been for the fact that he had told us earlier that evening that right after the concert he had to get into his pyjamas and into the bed because next morning a long drive to Leipzig was waiting, we would not have let him go that fast!
But the evening was not yet over... when we left, Jim was still there at the door, sayd good-bye personally to everyone... still signing CDs and shaking hands. We thank him for a wonderfull evening and wish him a safe drive next day. And left with a certain feeling that there are a few more things we should have told him and would have wanted to tell him... to talk about with him. That's the kind of person he is... we'll sure be there in the crowd when he'll be around next time... hoping that it won't take long until next time...!