Good things come to those who wait. We recorded this session way back in August, but for various reasons we’re only able to put it on the site now. The Xcerts are perhaps not the normal type of band we feature in our sessions, but having seen them live a few times over the years, and with the album a regular on our music player of choice for months now, we were keen to pin them down for a session.

We met the band during the Edinburgh Festival, ahead of their headline show at the GRV. Having scoured the city for locations that weren’t overrun with tourists, we decided on a small courtyard just behind our favourite old-town pub, The Jolly Judge. What had been a fairly quiet spot, however, was soon full of tourists, kids, workmen and the biggest dogs we’ve ever seen. It all makes for an interesting session though. Most importantly, the songs are great.

We get two songs here. The first, ‘Aberdeen 1987′, is our favourite song on the album. Quite different to everything else on ‘In The Cold Wind We Smile’, it’s probably the song that will sound most similar to the album version using this stripped back setup.

The second song was ‘Do You Feel Safe?”, a previous single, which sounds quite different here to it’s loud, rocking album version. Drummer Tom swapped his glockenspiel for an empty beer barrel ‘borrowed’ from the pub. This take was almost abandoned half way through when the two largest dogs we’ve ever seen came bounding past, almost taking half our equipment with them. The band, being consummate professionals, managed to carry on regardless.