It was surely an entirely unintended irony that an event supporting a campaign to resist the threat to a modern monument in Glasgow posed by redevelopment plans associated with the city's ambitions to be seen as a major sporting venue turned out to be a sneak preview of one of the most promising cultural projects funded to accompany the Commonwealth Games next year.
The East End Social programme intends to animate the area with music and the artists assembled by Stuart Braithwaite for this concert to protect the stone circle his late father constructed are likely all to be involved. In the case of opening act Aidan Moffat, that was absolutely the case, as he ended with a brand new drinking song in a contemporary music-hall vein that has been written to a 2014 commission. That it followed a tune from his Arab Strap days set the tone for the mix of old and new that characterised the whole evening.
With Remember Remember's Graeme Ronald and James Graham of The Twlight Sad stripping their compositions back to their essence, the largest ensemble on stage at any point was when Emma Pollock was joined by three members of the Cairn String Quartet, before she added her own collaborative talents to the set by RM Hubbert. Absolutely everyone was at the top of their game, however. I have not heard Pollock sing better and the sound in the main auditorium for a fine set by The Vaselines' Eugene Kelly and the closing one by Graham was impeccable. For many, however, the rare treat was a solo set by Braithwaite himself and the proof that the roots of Mogwai, like everything else, lie in the blues.
Save Sighthill Stone Circle concert
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