Ben Monteith at Room 2

Glasgow. Friday 21-October-2022

We first discovered Ben Monteith in 2019 when he was support for Emeli Sandé. We were impressed not just by his singing but by his stage presence. He was discovered by Emeli as part of a TV program to showcase Scottish buskers. She was so impressed with him that she invited him to support her on her European tour. This time Ben Monteith was the headliner in Room 2, a small Glasgow venue, with his own support acts.

We decided to make a weekend of it and go stay with Mary’s sister who lives near Glasgow Airport. We drove up on the Thursday to renew the plant pot at the cemetery where Mary‘s parents ashes are. Then on to her sister’s for supper.

Friday was spent wondering around Glasgow doing a bit of shopping with an afternoon tea break at the Willow tearooms. We had a tasty pre-gig meal at The Citizen.

Ben is a fine singer but I do not think the venue did him any favours. Someone decided to give the smoke machine a quick burst so that we did not have a crystal clear view of the stage. I am convinced the PA system was not particularly high quality as his voice did not come across as well as when we saw him last (but that was at the Hammersmith Apollo).

He had two support acts both, like himself, were blokes with a guitar singing a mixture of covers and originals.

Ben then did a good long set lasting an hour and a half including a number of songs we knew from the album we have (Busking Live II). As at previous concerts we have attended half the audience appeared to be word perfect with the lyrics and were singing along.

Saturday morning was an opportunity for some parkrun tourism. We set an alarm a little bit earlier so we could drive down to the coast for Ayr parkrun this helping us with a number of parkrun challenges, most notably the alphabet as we were missing an A. Usually on the 22nd, aka two-two, a number of parkrunners wear tu-tu’s. The parkrunners / walkers at Ayr hadn't got the memo so we three were the only ones participating and we did get a lot of compliments.

The course is very much a trail course and very wet and muddy it was too. Back to Sandra and George's for a much needed shower and lunch. Then a drive home to Penrith followed by a short siesta and then out for a Mexican meal at Salsa to catch up with all our friends.