A long time ago, 1989 to be precise, I bought three albums on the same day: del Amitri's "Waking Hours", Danny Wilson's "Meet Danny Wilson" and The Kevin McDermott Orchestra's "Mother Nature's Kitchen". All were out on major labels and demonstrated the record company interest in Scottish bands at the time. In the years that have passed only del Amitri are still with their original label and they have enjoyed considerable worldwide success. The other acts are still making music, although Danny Wilson split up and the brothers Clark now have their own separate projects, and over two days in November just about the whole lot were playing in Edinburgh. The Kevin McDermott Orchestra are now on their fourth album, the recently released "For Those In Peril From The Sea", have abbreviated their name to KMO and were doing a few live dates to promote the album. Support was provided by Kit Clark's band, Swiss Family Orbison, although I was annoyed that I couldn't get to the gig in time to see them. When KMO came on stage they launched into Somebody To Believe In followed by Hole In The Ground, two songs from their second album Bedazzled, and the audience gave the band an enthusiastic welcome. A couple of hundred loyal fans had turned out, no doubt expecting some of their favourite songs to be played. With four albums of songs to choose from it could have been difficult to please everyone but the set list demonstrated an excellent balance between the crowd pleasers and the new material. When introducing Hayley's Comet Kevin explained that the concert was mixing the old and the new, recognising that people wanted to hear the well known songs but telling us that the new songs will soon be like old friends. Kevin was, as ever, ably supported by Marco Rossi on guitar with Jim McDermott on drums and Stephen Greer on bass, the line up which has been constant almost since the beginning of the Kevin McDermott Orchestra. Songs from the beginning still sound as good now as they did eight years ago with What Comes To Pass particularly impressive and Wheels Of Wonder one the audience wanted to hear. Obviously someone in the crowd was pleased because when its turn came as from somewhere a bicycle wheel was produced which got passed around near the front! The audience also got the chance to sing along to She Comes From The Sun and Kevin hardly needed to ask us the question: Are We Having A Good Time Yet? when that song was played. The band did not rest on their past achievements playing around half a dozen songs from the new album, including The World's Address, Icarus Landing and Windows On The World, with the title track one of those which stood out. Also memorable was Wandering which featured an ever more manic sweat-drenched Kevin as the speed of the song increased. The last song of the main set was, appropriately enough, Everything Is Over, but of course we would not let them get away without an encore. They did come back, slowing things down a bit with an acoustic version of Till The Bough Breaks. Mother Nature's Kitchen, the title track of the first album, was the final song and stills ranks as one of KMO's best live songs. No songs from the third album, The Last Supper, which at one time could have been the band's final sign off, but the audience went home happy and hopefully it won't be too long before Kevin and co give us another chance to get to know the new songs. The following evening saw del Amitri play a concert at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, one of the city's major venues ... but that's another story. All I will say is that it too was a great show and it was good to see Stephen Greer turn up to help out when Justin Currie needed a hand with an extra bass player. It's funny to think that a lot of people who enjoyed del Amitri would also have had a great time the previous evening, if only they'd known.