Lloyd Cole - Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh 2nd August 2026

Lloyd Cole is a fairly regular visitor to these shores from his home in Chicago. It is always nice to see him present his extensive songbook in different ways; sometimes he has a band, sometimes it's an acoustic offering either alone or with a friend or family member in support. Tonight, it was to be a solo performance with an electric guitar as accompaniment.

Now, I think that is a bit of a bold move. An electric guitar, all on its own, is much less forgiving than any other set up. It points to Lloyd’s confidence in his own skin and skill and something I am looking forward to hearing.

I got to the venue early enough to grab a beer. It was nice too to bump into an old pal, David Watt. Tonight was about memories as well as music, and we got talking about the Commotions, Love and Money, Kevin McDermott (who we might have spotted in the crowd) and Danny Wilson. During the late 1980 and early 90’s Scotland really was awash with so much quality pop music; those were great times, and, as a resident of Glasgow’s Great Western Road, Lloyd was very much a part of it.

It looked to me that most of tonight’s audience were survivors of those days. There were groups of women who came together, their love for Lloyd had clearly lasted longer than the relationships they were in when they first heard him. Similarly, the guys with hair were doing their best to slick it back or spike it up, in homage to their look of four decades earlier. Even the bar staff with dressed sympathetically in all black gear.

One of us need have worried, just on 8 o’clock the lights dimmed and we all transformed, we were back to the 80’s and in our minds our turtlenecks were tucked into our jeans and we were swaying in our happy melancholy.

Lloyd took to the stage in all white, his uniform of choice these days and grabbed his guitar.

First up ‘29’ from Mainstream, the last Commotions album; it gave a sense of what the night was going to look like. With no other instruments, this was going to be a night where the voice and lyrics took centre stage, with the guitar playing, very much a supporting, but no less, important role. The opener was quickly followed by ‘No More Love Songs’ from the 2003 Negatives album.

My favourite Lloyd Cole song has always been ‘Rattlesnakes’. It appeared next with, I think, a bar or two from AC/DC’s ‘Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution’ to open it up.

I’d love to know if I heard right. I left Twitter a while ago, for reasons you’d guess, but that was a great way to connect with musicians and Lloyd was no exception, he’d answer the odd question or make a wee comment in response to a reference here or there. It is one of the few things I miss about that platform. I’d certainly have asked if an AC/DC riff had made it onto his stage.

The rest of the first half was a mixture of the old and not quite so old. Lloyd knew what his audience wanted and gave that to them. The first half of the opening set could easily be the last few songs of a headline set. ‘Speedboat’, ‘Brand New Friend’ and ‘Perfect Skin’ all got a run out and sat really well alongside slightly less old solo cuts, including ‘Guesswork’, ‘Baby’ and ‘Undressed’.

The first set finished with the brilliant ‘2CV’. I guess 40 years ago we’d all be running to the bar, tonight it was a sprint to the bathrooms.

After 20 minutes or so, we all reassembled in this lovely, seated venue for some more.

‘Are You Ready to be Heartbroken’ started the second half. It was a joy to listen to another hour of songs that were about love; requited love, unrequited love, broken love, painful love and, I am sure there must have been some joy in there too.

These were the songs of my youth, of sitting in my bedroom with friends drinking tea and listening to those records. ‘Charlotte Street’, ‘Jennifer’ and ‘Hey Rusty’ prime amongst those memories.

Some wag asked for ‘My Bag’. “It's on sabbatical” Lloyd replied. That kind of demonstrates the depth of the Lloyd Cole songbook that strong and popular songs, like ‘My Bag’, can be dropped from the proceedings and it still a cracking setlist.

‘The Afterlife’ and ‘No Blue Skies’ were real highlights for me too. ‘I’m Gone’ closed the set and Lloyd wandered off.

This was quite a laid-back gig, “join in if you want” said Lloyd, “just not too exuberantly”. That set the tone, for the night, the stage banter was minimal but good fun and the audience just enjoyed sitting back and lapping up the music, but when Lloyd changed a word or a line, the giggles in the room showed this educated audience knew; they were certainly paying attention.



Encores of ‘Lost Weekend’ and the mighty ‘Forest Fire’ took us to the close of what had been a fantastic night.

As the lights came on, we were all transported back to 2026, we had, once again, left 1986 behind. But time travel does wonderful things, we all left the Queen’s Hall showing a bit of extra swagger and wearing smiles that can only come from the comforting love of memories of music, youth and optimism.

Are we ready to be heartbroken? Probably not, but Lloyd is certainly welcome back to try again as soon as he likes.