Music review: Beth Orton, Classic Grand, Glasgow

Beth Orton, Classic Grand, Glasgow ***

Taking the stage with her five-piece band, Beth Orton sparkled – literally – in a sequined frock. "Lovely dress" came the automatic heckle. The best they’ve ever seen, some shouted later on. "I made an effort," shrugged Orton.

Musically, however, Orton is no razzle dazzler. Gentle, wistful, subtle, brooding, downbeat, impressionistic, warm, comforting, all those things, but never flamboyant, despite the evident talent assembled onstage. Orton herself was mainly helming electric piano, the instrument she adopted to write her new album, Weather Alive. The title track was her opening gambit here and she went on to play all eight tracks in the course of her set, starting with the first four in sequence.

In contrast to the indie folk with which she made her name 20 years ago, these were long mood pieces coloured with mellow jazz saxophone and flute, double bass, drums and additional keyboards, plus a sedentary guitarist who often provided the cherry on top of Orton’s alto warble. The skipping, skittering rhythm of Friday Night provided a contrast to the understated introversion elsewhere.

Orton switched periodically to acoustic guitar to revisit older material such as Pass In Time, which was stripped back yet more demonstrative, with lovely lap steel embellishment, and Sweetest Decline, both taken from her acclaimed 1999 album Central Reservation. Early hit single She Cries Your Name was greeted like an old friend, and atmospherically delivered with plangent bowed bass and the swell of guitar.

This was a set of songs to lean in to and the audience wanted more, stomping until Orton returned for a solo rendition of Lonely on piano, followed by a guitar duet on Blood River, and then a reprise of the full band line-up for the blithe jaunt Call Me the Breeze.