Santa’s Polaroid

I’m going to resist the end of year lists for wee while yet as I endeavour to catch up on some other stuff. One of which is “Scottish Fiction” by Idlewild. Now Idlewild have featured a lot on MPT this year, in no small part due to their busy schedule which has included a new LP, 2 tours and a Best Of package.

“Scottish Fiction: Best of 1997-2007” came out a couple of months back in both vanilla CD and also limited edition CD/DVD flavour. The CD is probably the least interesting aspect of the package for fans since there are no new tracks. So kudos from this particular corner at least in not trying to bleed fans dry for a limited amount of new material. The most interesting thing for the fans on the CD is that the songs have been remastered. That is particularly noticeable on the earlier tracks which sound just a little bit more robust than their earlier recorded incarnations.

Of course, ‘Best Ofs’ are not done for fans but are intended to introduce a band to a slightly different audience. Sadly however this record seems to have failed to have done so for Idlewild as the LP hasn’t exactly set the charts on fire.

As an introduction to the band the CD may serve its purpose but it’s the DVD which really holds the most interest for fans. All the band’s videos are collected here and these have been enhanced with some wry commentaries from Roddy Woomble, which are both self deprecating and entertaining. There is a strong degree of overlap with the CD but a surprising number of the singles aren’t on the CD.

Perhaps of greater interest though is the live footage, principally based on a gig at the Aberdeen Music Hall in March. The performance of the band is great but largely due to an apparently unresponsive audience it’s not perhaps the best representation of the Idlewild live experience.

There’s plenty of other stuff as well, such as other live performances and a documentary of the making of ‘Warnings/ Promises’, so as a dip into the Idlewild experience this is pretty good.

However I can’t help feeling that an opportunity has been missed here. As tends to be the case there are quibbles over the selection of tracks for a ‘Best Of’ (the omission of ‘A Film For The Future’ is perhaps the most glaring, even if it is on the video section). But it’s the treatment of the live footage that wrankles the most.

It seems to me to be odd, in this day and age, that the whole show isn’t included. Maybe that’s down to space to fit everything else in but one consequence is that each clips fades in and out giving no overall sense of the gig. To make matters worse ‘Everything (As It Moves)’ is not included in the main concert sequence but as an “extra” alongside the other live footage.

So is this worth having for the diehard? Absolutely (if you can still get it). But as a package it falls short of its potential.

From the live segment:

Idlewild – Satan Polaroid (from Scottish Fiction 1997-2007 CD/DVD package)

You can still get the limited ‘Scottish Fiction’ and other Idlewild here. There’s also a companion rarities compilation available via download only – try here.