Gig review: KT Tunstall

Reassuringly, KT Tunstall is no Sheena Easton. She may live in Venice Beach, California, and have an array of stories about 'people who wear white jeans and no socks' and 'hippies with fake boobs', but they're delivered in such an incredulous, disbelieving manner that a crowd of fellow Fifers had no trouble relating.

KT Tunstall ****

Alhambra, Dunfermline

Tunstall undoubtedly has patter; maybe a little too much, on occasion, as between songs it sometimes feels as if she’s segued into a stand-up routine.

She also has is a repertoire of full-band and solo acoustic songs, amassed in the 12 years since she released her debut album, which is reflective of a commendable desire not to be pigeon-holed.

Placed together, new songs Hard Girls and It Took Me So Long to Get Here, But Here I Am and strong, enduring pop hits Fade Like a Shadow and Suddenly I See add up to an impressive body of work. Black Horse and the Cherry Tree sounded great, too, fused with a kazoo-led take on the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army.

She may joke about being old enough to be the mother of James Bay, her first-ever duet partner on recent album KIN’s winsome, country-inflected Two Way (she isn’t; there are only 15 years between them), but the silver-trousered singer appears to be operating with a dynamism that’s becoming less self-conscious with every passing year.

DAVID POLLOCK