Gig review: Michael Gira, St Andrews in the Square Glasgow

There was hushed contemplation in church on the opening night of the Glasgow leg of Counterflows, a new tri-city music festival, which also takes in London and Berlin and features musicians from the UK, Japan, Korea and the United States, all operating at the experimental extremes of their field, whether that be folk, rock or jazz.

Or maybe the audience were just zoning out to the drone requiem supplied by Grouper, aka Portland sound artist Liz Harris.

Stalking the margins in his stetson, headliner Michael Gira looked like he was ready to deliver a brimstone sermon from the pulpit. He certainly had the booming, authoritative voice to pull it off.

The Swans frontman kept up the intensity of his group incarnation, if not the gut-churning volume, in his sombre solo guise, where the sonorous strum of his acoustic guitar sounded like a harbinger of doom, and the anguished catharsis of his delivery was hardly any sunnier.

Gira’s dread folk tales and lyrical viscera make Nick Cave’s country noir testifying sound like a bit of girly whingeing.

“I’m just doing all the hits,” he joked breezily after one particularly brutal interlude. And so generous of him to lighten the mood later with what he insisted were love songs. Yet he was a fascinating presence with the slightly sinister charisma of a cult leader.

I would follow him if he asked me. Frankly, I’d be too scared to refuse.

Rating: ***