Gig review: The fence collective & friends, Glasgow

THE teatime kickoff for this gig overlapped with the tail-end of Festival Sunday, the free annual open-air party in Kelvingrove Park that launches Glasgow's West End Festival, generating a palpable en fte buzz in the surrounding streets. A comparable ambience was also discernible inside ran Mr: not only did the seven-act bill constitute a miniature festival-within-the festival, but the camaraderie that binds Fife-based musicians' network The Fence Collective also unites much of its audience, who could be heard greeting one another and swapping memories from previous gatherings.

Each of the featured artists – all broadly classifiable as singer-songwriters, apart from the last – commented on this welcoming mood in the room, starting with Dan Lyth, who set the tone for much of the night with his soulful, gently yearning vocals and tenderly meditative songs, spiced up with adroit cross-rhythmic backing and the occasional rousing crescendo.

Withered Hand, aka Dan Willson, consolidated his rising-star status with a mix of febrile intensity and faintly distrait self-deprecation, the potency of his singing allied with arresting imagery and crafty rhymes.

Rob St John's richly sepulchral voice seemed distinctly short-changed by his resolutely downbeat, introspective material, while Rozi Plain – the nom de plume of Rosalind Leyden – also displayed somewhat undercooked songcraft.

The combined talents of Fence co-directors The Pictish Trail (Johnny Lynch) and King Creosote (Kenny Anderson) delivered a wealth of heart-tugging lyricism and gorgeously layered harmonies, before four-piece Kid Canaveral rounded things off in splendidly bracing style, matching full-throttle punkish attack with memorable singalong hooks.