Gig review: Stag & Dagger, Glasgow

In A climate where start-up festivals come and go and city-based multi-venue events seem to be finding it tough to achieve any degree of longevity, it’s pleasing to report that promoter PCL’s annual one-day Stag and Dagger jaunt around Glasgow appears to have reached its fifth anniversary in good health.

Stag & Dagger - Various Venues, Glasgow

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There were some signs of a little trimming of fat around the edges, with quality local acts and largely unheralded touring artists appearing in place of big marquee names, but it was hard to fault the varied and high quality selection of alternative artists appearing.

There was only one large stage throughout the event, the main hall upstairs at the ABC, which played host to three bands: Kilmarnock indie-rock outfit Fatherson, whose billing here reflected their increasing status as a group widely perceived to be capable of making wider progress; the rootsy dream-pop of Brooklyn-based Matthew Houck’s Phosphorescent; and Glasgow’s own We Were Promised Jetpacks, a group whose affecting strand of millennial post-rock suited the grand setting, even if the hall wasn’t full for their appearance. Otherwise the set-up reflected the fact the Charing Cross end of Sauchiehall Street has recently become a nexus for some of Glasgow’s best basement bar venues, with three of them within a few dozen metres of one another.

A highlight in Broadcast and of the evening were Temples, a riot of perms, feather cuts, noisy psych-glam squalor and a true classic in Shelter Song, while Glasgow’s noise-metal contingent Divorce blew minds and eardrums in Nice ‘n’ Sleazy’s and Vondelpark at the Art School recreated the lush, downbeat dubstep so favoured by the likes of James Blake. Special mention must also go to Rachel Sermanni at the CCA, an eccentric and ever more exciting singer-songwriting talent amidst a day packed with many more challenging and less traditional forms of music.