Thursday 20th August 1998 Saturday 21st November 1998 Tuesday 24th November 1998

By way of background, Sharon has been in love with Roddy Frame since she was 12. It is generally accepted that Oblivious started the downward spiral of obsessive compulsive record buying and resulted in the wreck of the girl you see today. Having discovered that Caroline possessed more than a passing interest in Aztec Camera, Sharon wasted no time in showing her the cover of Frestonia, guaranteed to win the man any female devotion, and another fan was well and truly created.

Tension was mounting on the Aztec Camera/Roddy Frame web site - wee Roddy had signed a deal with Independiente, the first record for some time was due for release, Reason for Living had been played to death on the radio AND he was going to play Edinburgh during the festival. A great cause for celebration!!

So the girls make their way to the Edinburgh Jaffa Cake, meeting up with other Azteccers in the process. They have a bizarre moment in the queue to get in when a man with a clipboard grills them on their favourite brand of jeans (?), they embarrass themselves by yelling the name of someone they might know down the entire queue to discover he isn't there. Then they are in. And they secure a spot at the front of the stage. Could it get any better? Well...first it gets worse...the support band (and bless her I have no idea what her name was), was, well, interesting....have you ever seen the Wedding Singer? The song of his own that he sings and he ends up screaming half way through? Yep, she may well have written that song. She was all nicey nicey between songs but her songs were painful. But determined to keep their front of stage places, the girls stood their ground and sheilded their ears.

Finally, twinkly eyed ickle Roddy comes on and does an acoustic Stray. Aaaahhhhhhhhhh. Now it's getting better. All of his new songs sound fantastic, all of his old songs sound as good as ever. He even hams it up during Somewhere in my Heart, with split kicks and guitar poses. Bless. As a final encore he comes on with  new song Hymn to Grace. Caroline summed it up nicely with 'I want that song'. A little later we got that song on the North Star album. Yum.

A few months later, the girls found themselves in Sheffield (like you do) for another Roddy gig with yet more Roddy fans. Sharon had been up since about 6am and had already spent the day in London with her brothers so was ready to fall over. The gig was late starting. Support Astrid (the girl from Shetland not the lads from Lewis) was superb, and won herself some fans that night. But the sound quality of the usually excellent Leadmill was awful. She even threw a small tantrum on stage, which was unsurprising, there was so much feedback you'd think the Jesus and Mary Chain* had stopped by for a jamming session.

* Small aside: the Jesus and Mary Chain used to live in our intercom. In Rosemount if someone buzzed to be let in, you had no idea who they were as all you got when you picked up the phone was ear splitting feedback. We can tell you from experience that thumping the phone against the wall in desperation does not help the situation. It became common when asked who was at the door to reply 'Jesus and Mary Chain again'. Anyway.....

Wee Roddy battles bravely against bad sound and annoying organisers who have told him to 'keep it upbeat', he thought they were expecting him to don a kagoul and do techno dancing, we're pretty glad he didn't. He is of course, as yummy as ever, as are his songs. He needs to eat more though. Sharon and Caroline get terribly concerned about their little heroes.

Three days later  and the girls find themsleves back in Aberdeen for yet another Roddy Frame experience. Not at all worried that they have taken on the guise of mild mannered stalkers by this point, they secure a spot at the front of the Lemon Tree stage  - all the better for being a low stage with no barriers. The Aberdeen semi-circle effect was clearly visibly here - wherever the girls stand at a gig a semi-circle of people appears around them. We were tempted to shuffle forward and see if the semi-circle moved too...

Again Astrid provides the support and very well she does too. With much better sound and a Scottish audience she gets a good reaction. Her over-enthusiastic keyboard player has a role on the tambourine during one song, in his mad rush to put down the tambourine and return to the keyboard he accidentally flung said tambourine, narrowly missing Caroline's head. Caroline would like it noted that she is mightily fed up of being attacked by musical instruments.

Wee Roddy enters the stage to discover the girls approximately 2 inches from his nose. We really didn't mean to be intimidating Roddy! Sharon has a small heart failure when he does Mattress of Wire. Both girls go ga-ga over an acoustic Bugle Sounds Again. He rewards us well with an encore of  Hymn to Grace. Token aww bless to the ickle bass player who bopped merrily away to Sister Shadow. A small note of alarm over how Craig Gannon hasn't changed a bit over 20 years. Certain 80s pop stars have discovered the secret of eternal youth. Roddy, Craig Gannon, Morten Harket, Nick Rhodes. David Bowie actually improves the older he gets (Bowie goes baggy in the 90s, floppy hair, oh my). It's all rather scary. Almost as scary as Caroline's dive across the stage to bag Roddy's plectrum.

So the gig is over, we see Roddy for probably the last time in many years...not the most prolific of artists, but certainly one of the most adored. How many other artists appreciate their fans enough to send a Christmas gift of a new song to their website?!

Set list and sacred plectrum...