Firstly I think its worth pointing out that the Playhouse in Edinburgh is a great venue for a show like this, surely one of the smallest on the tour and my seat in third row centre was great. I was pleased to discover that Man on a Track from the forum was sitting next to me and he was able to introduce me to some other fans after the show as well.

As some of you may remember, I really hate knowing details of the set before the show, so I have been avoiding setlists etc since the tour began. Therefore I was going into the gig almost blind. I say almost because I did look at photos from the tour and you can make certain deductions Red Schecter Tele=Walk of Life, stuff like that, but for the most part I managed to remain in the dark, so thanks to everyone who used spoilers etc on the board.

Ill go through the set pretty much song by song with my observations:

Why Aye Man: Great! Funny how I never noticed that there was a disco drumbeat on this song before. Great playing from Mark. From my position down at the front I was able to hear the guitar coming directly from the Komet amps, and it sounded great.

Walk of Life: I know that a lot of hardcore fans are fed up with it, but it gets the crowd going and it was great to finally hear a proper solo from MK on it. Never understood all the messing about with bass and accordion solos. The country licks were reminiscent of the Neck & Neck album.

What It Is: Sort of strange that MK didnt say This is a song about Edinburgh while performing the song in Edinburgh, but a great version none the less. As a proud MK Strat owner I was pleased to see the introduction of the MK Strat. That said, I thought the Strat tones here (and indeed throughout the show) were slightly heavy; I dont think its down to the guitar, I think those Komet amps, while amazing with heavy tones, arent so good for clean work. My personal preference is for the sparkling strat tones that MK made famous in the early days, but I dont suppose most people notice these things.

Sailing to Philadelphia: Was surprised to see this in the set for some reason, but a beautiful version.

Romeo & Juliet/Sultans: Great performances as ever, not really much else to say, I guess that MK just has to play these two.

Bonaparte: Was fine, to be honest I could have done without it but it breaks up the set I suppose. MKs jokes about Glenns large instrument and Good luck must be reaching their 1,000th appearance, but hey, if it aint broke dont fix it.

Back to Tupelo: Wonderful, took me completely by surprise. When the chords started strumming at the start I assumed it was Baloney Again, but no. Quite funny to see Guy struggling to cope with a bigsby tremolo on his Gretsch but he did fine. Funnily enough, one complete idiot had been shouting for songs from Shangri La, which MK had taken in good fun, but the guy got a bit nasty just before this song saying something like Come on Mark, this is supposed to be the Shangri La tour, where are the songs from Shangri La. MK seemed unimpressed. Thankfully this song and the others that followed shut the idiot up.

Donegans Gone: Great version of a great song. I was particularly pleased to be able to see how MK actually plays it. Ill be tuning to E soon and getting my slide out to see if I can replicate (no chance!)

Song for Sonny Liston: Probably my least favourite SL track, but still a good one. Again I was pleased to see how MK actually played it, although when I got home and tried to do it myself I didnt get very far. At this point I realised I must have spent about 90% of the show watching MK or RBs hands on their guitars to work out what they were doing. Oops.

Rudiger: Again a surprise, but a welcome one. Great rendition and ace guitar tones from MK. MK seemed to be using a vintage Les Paul in this part of the set, whereas the one he used for Why Aye Man looked like a new reissue. I emailed Guy and he has said he will do a section on MKs Les Pauls at some point in the tour diary.

Boom Like That: Great. I saw several performances of this on promos and just was not convinced that the Silvertone could handle the distorted solos, even with the various pedals that MK was using. No such problems here. The combination of his boost pedals and the Komet amps gave a creamy overdrive sound, almost on a par with a Les Paul. I can see vintage prices of these guitars going through the roof soon if MK keeps this up.

Speedway: Another surprise for me, but it was great. Funny to see Danny take a rest for the first part of the song as the sequencers took care of the beats for a while. Seems strange to see RB with a Les Paul. I wonder if he has his own one which they carry around the world for just the end of one song or if they let him use one of Marks?

Telegraph: Again faultless, but again Im not convinced about the heavy strat tones. Just my personal preference.

BiA/MFN: Excellent versions of both. Whats the story with RB on MFN?! He seemed to be having a good time on percussion anyway!

So Far Away/Shangri La: Perfect closers, interesting for me to note that MK uses the middle strat pickup on SFA, I assumed he did to get the Marvin sound on SL, but thought SFA would be one of the in-between sounds.

All in all, probably the best gig Ive ever been to, at least on a par with the show I saw in Aberdeen on the Golden heart tour in 96. Roll on June 29th when I get to see it all again in NYC!