There’s lots of proper stuff to write about today as I sit in this hotel room in London. And as is my wont, the more there is to write about the less I want to write about it and the more I want to talk about something completely unrelated. So let’s talk about something unrelated. It’ll all make sense in a minute. Or not. You can never tell.

So I was at a King Creosote gig a week or two ago. For those of you who don’t know King Creosote, his real name is Kenny Anderson and he’s a powerhouse of the Scottish music scene; has been for at least a couple of decades and before he was a solo guy was in the brilliantly named Skoubhie Dubh Orchestra. He’s also – fun fact! – the guy behind Fence Records where KT Tunstall and The Beta Band got their start. And most importantly of all, Fence was where James Yorkston got his break too, and long-term readers will know that James and the lang cat are inextricably linked.

Anyway, this gig was at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, which is a lovely place that you’d think was generally more suitable for orchestral or choral music when you walk in, though I’ve seen all sorts there from Idlewild to Elbow to Marillion to The National. The one thing you get with the Usher Hall is fantastic acoustics, and so it came as a bit of a disappointment when the sound on the first song was soup. Worse than that, it had a sort of loud electric crackling going on all the time, and we all know that crackly soup is the very worst kind of soup.

This didn’t augur well, and nor did the appearance of several men in black t-shirts with wee torches running around and looking worried. The sound improved to the point where you could hear the individual instruments, but that crackle was still there all the time. You could tell the musicians could hear it too as they were looking pretty distracted and a bit grumpy.

We get three or four songs deep, and it’s clear things aren’t OK. So Kenny stops the gig and explains that the crackle needs fixing. The band plays some quieter stuff with no drums or electronics for a bit while the techies run around some more, but it’s not getting any better and after a few minutes Kenny says they have to stop playing.

Most musicians would, I think, say the game’s a bogey and hit the green room. Not King Creosote though. He gets down off the stage with the fiddle player, and proceeds to walk around the Usher Hall aisles, busking a tune as he goes. You can find film of it all over social media if you look.

Having wandered around, he gets back up onstage and gives the audience a choice – they can go offstage for 10 minutes to give the techies more time and then come back, or they can keep playing with the crackle on the basis that nothing says it’ll get fixed at all and so all we’d have had was 10 minutes of nothing. Vote! The crowd – all 2,000 of us – unanimously shout he should keep playing, and he does until the baw is finally declared to be burst and the gig is officially over, though will be rescheduled in December.

But Kenny isn’t done, you can tell he’s upset as this is a big show for him. So he tells folk they can leave whenever, but he wants to play some more, so he sits on the edge of the stage with his acoustic guitar and the fiddle player and accordion player sit with him. The drummer, guitarist, electronics guys etc all watch from side stage. He plays – completely unamplified – two or three songs, and 2,000 people are completely and I do mean completely silent so they can hear. Proper pin drop moment, and a hairs on the back of your neck moment too.

That done, he finally calls it, and the place goes completely bananas, full standing ovation. And as we leave, everyone’s saying the same thing – we get a reschedule or a refund which is great, but we got one of the most memorable gigs ever already so anything else is a bonus. What everyone will remember won’t be the rescheduled gig, it’ll be how this guy handled a situation in front of 2,000 paying gig-goers and got everyone on his side.

If this was LinkedIn you would now get a tedious bit about how this links to business and follow me for more great insights or whatever. Not doing that, obviously. It is OK though, I think, to take some inspiration from the sheer heart of this guy who could have easily walked off stage when everything went south, accepted it was over and gone for the reschedule. Maybe most bands would have done that. There’s something about the generosity of spirit Kenny showed in making sure there was a show no matter what which probably is worth holding onto, whatever our own version of the Usher Hall gig is.

So that’s my King Creosote story, nothing at all to do with financial services but there we go.

Now, the least I can do is give you some King Creosote for our music choice. Here’s a very wonderful wee film with a few songs in it and Kenny mucking around. The best one is Burial Bleak which starts at just after 9 minutes in. But the whole thing is great.