Made in Easterhouse, Platform, Glasgow ****

Beloved East End arts centre Platform relaunched its live music programme as part of Made In Easterhouse, its first multi-artform day since 2019. MCs Geraldine Heaney and Hamish Orr presided over the café hub space, checking off the day’s events on a huge piece of liner paper, alongside the small interactions which make a festival, from “have a coffee” to “swap a record” (in honour of Record Store Day), from “learn something new” to “dance to R. Aggs”.

Dancing was a running theme across the live music and performances of the day, from the likes of Aggs – the guitar-slinging half of Scottish Album of the Year Award winning duo Sacred Paws – and yogic electro pop duo Free Love in collaboration with audio-visual artist k.yalo. Later in the day, DJ Junglehussi presided over a mellow, melodious set of electro jazz, funk and soul, morphing from dreamy psych to a carnivalesque electro samba.

Various spaces around the complex were utilised, including the top of a ramp beside some floor-to-ceiling windows where electro punk trio Brenda had draped their spray-painted banner. Drummer Apsi, guitarist Litty and synth player Flore claimed to be slightly freaked out by the conspicuous daylight streaming in through the windows, but despite their infectious, self-deprecating commentary, were emboldened to proclaim this their favourite of the two gigs they had done on the day.

With a top drawer debut album to come this summer, they are a hugely enjoyable proposition, paying tribute to their roots as a “joke band” (hard to know whether or not to credit this) with lo-fi tinny keyboards, songs about pigs and a repertoire of faces pulled to make it look like their playing required great technical skills.

The simplicity was all part of the appeal, as were their unison vocals and group harmonies, whether deployed on ace current synth pop single Microscopic Babe or the soulful incantation Sure As, harshly described by the band as “like walking through treacle”. Despite dire warnings that the live debut of a song entitled Psychopath “could go horribly wrong”, all went off without a hitch.

Electronica duo Town Centre (actually from the southside, or so it would appear from their lyrics) also have less-than-serious roots as the winners of a lockdown Eurovision contest among friends, but have extrapolated their victory into a streamlined dance pop set which is cooler and more intimate than your average Eurobanger, thanks to the conversational delivery of diarised lyrics - one about a character heartbroken in Lanzarote but mostly involving day-to-day observations.

Junglehussi performs a DJ set at Platform's Made In Easterhouse event, 22nd April 2023. PIC: Euan Robertson

One particularly pulsing electro track provoked a full-on street dance-off from excited audience members, some of whom were already warmed up from their appearance in the day’s centrepiece performance, People Dancing.

Aside from the venue’s new exhibition, East End Portraits, featuring members of the local community photographed by Saskia Coulson and Colin Tennant, this was the main engagement with the area, as an ensemble of 11 from Platform’s Thursday Night Drama Company, representing a variety of ages, shapes, gaits and abilities, came together fluidly to demonstrate the joy of movement, whether walking solemnly in formation, or taking the floor individually to respond in their own style to the music.

A professional dancer led one section with everyone following her slick moves as they could; a mirrorball was cradled and spun on the floor to simple but beautiful effect, and the final movement – a shape-shifting exultant suite with dancers following each other’s leads – was enthusiastically received by an audience one suspected would have joined in at the slightest invitation.

Festival review: Made in Easterhouse, Platform, Glasgow