Gig review: KT Tunstall

AS SACCHARINE as her output has often been, it's hard to attend a KT Tunstall gig and not find yourself rooting for the cheerful Fifer. For too long, though, her undeniable natural talent has been deadened by the lightweight musical arrangement of her songs and their obvious pitching towards an easily satisfied, middle of the road market.

Only now, with her third album, Tiger Suit, does she seem to have discovered how to present her music with a combination of popular appeal and attention-grabbing bite.

While not as rock 'n' roll as either Tunstall's black leather trousers or the album's genesis between clubbing sessions in Berlin might suggest, this show benefitted hugely from a willingness to just turn the music up - including for the perennial Other Side of the World and Black Horse & the Cherry Tree, the song which made her name, both came early in the set.

Elsewhere, her agreeably reflective comeback single (Still a) Weirdo and the brand new closing trio of Madame Trudeaux (about former Canadian first lady Margaret Trudeau's association with the Rolling Stones - "like Samantha Cameron running off with Jay-Z", Tunstall notes approvingly), Push That Knot Away and Fade Like a Shadow bounce along on strong hooks and loud, danceable rhythms.

The latter element hasn't been a stock-in-trade of Tunstall's live sets thus far, but she appears to have adapted some of her older songs to fit - for example adding a club-patterned drumbeat and retro keyboard stabs to Saving My Face and the closing Suddenly I See, and indulging her taste for "school disco" anthems with a cover of Erasure's A Little Respect.

It was honest-to-goodness fun, and the feeling is such a welcome shift in emphasis might bring Tunstall the career longevity her talent deserves.