Seen on Wednesday January 21
It took a few years for Dan Willson (aka Withered Hand) to bring his confidence as a live performer up to the same level as his skill as a songwriter. He's on cracking form in both capacities these days (Withered Hand's album New Gods was No 1 in the Sunday Herald's Top 50 Scottish Albums of 2014) and it was a special treat to see him not in solo troubadour guise but backed by a six-piece band for this festival gig. The honest vulnerability of Willson's lyrics is transformed into underdog defiance when there's an expanded ensemble on hand to mould power-pop nuggets from his songs.
I'll admit that my Portuguese doesn't even stretch to "please" and "thank you", so the details of Sao Paolo favela life contained in Criolo's headline set were lost on me. But even I could feel the energy in the room rise when the Brazilian began to fire out the slapped consonants of his raps, and as a soul singer he also has bags of charisma. Too often, though, his band retreated into a sluggish 1970s jazz-funk groove that didn't match his magnetism. Not Celtic, perhaps, but it certainly made a connection with Glasgow's small Brazilian contingent.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article