Hogmanay review: KT Tunstall at the resolution concert

Published on Sunday 2 January 2011 16:36

RESOLUTION CONCERT PRINCES STREET GARDENS, EDINBURGH ****

Even from cold practicality's point of view, this new finale to Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebrations makes perfect sense. After all, if you've got a stage ready-built from the night afore's celebrations and enough demand, why not put a few bands on early in the evening of 1 January? Even better, make the headliner a local artist who has enjoyed something of a renaissance in the last 12 months - KT Tunstall - and let her pick her own support acts. As she pointed out, this is where we got to "do what they did last night all over again, except now we all feel a bit ill".

In turning mainly to her old friends from Fife's Fence Collective for support, Tunstall tapped into one of Scottish music's most exciting veins of music from 2010. Openers Silver Columns, a dance duo consisting of Adem, Fence head Johnny Lynch and a trestle table weighed down with electronics, struggled to warm the crowd up in the space of four songs, but Lynch's cheery enthusiasm and the upbeat electro-pop of Cavalier and Browbeaten fought bravely against the chilling cold.

Although not Fence affiliates, Glasgow's Kassidy will appeal to Tunstall's fans (she met them in a London studio, where they refused to let her carry her own gear). A bit rock, a bit country, a bit like Kings of Leon if you squint hard and don't expect to be utterly blown away, their sound is built on good ol' guitars and strong choruses.

As is that of King Creosote, who first inspired Tunstall to play music when she was 16 years old and saw him perform in a St Andrews pub, but with an added acre of unique and irresistible charm. Tunstall and Lynch joined in with backing vocals on the heart-stirring Not One Bit Ashamed, and The Happy Song saw the night's first real dancing outbreaks occur.

So to Tunstall herself, who played the set she's been touring in support of her latest album Tiger Suit, with sometime Ash guitarist Charlotte Hatherley now a part of her band. Measured against her earlier career it's a revelation: her finest moments, like the moody solo version of Black Horse & The Cherry Tree which made her name, are intact, the drab middle of the road balladry of Other Side of the World has been re-energised by a new solo electronic version, and her finest new tracks Fade Like a Shadow, Madame Trudeaux and Push That Knot Away are worthy of arenas.

It was a convincing first instalment of an event that will hopefully return in 2012.