You have to hand it to The Heartbreaks.

Faced with an over-capacity venue and a queue of fans upstairs, they turned both floors of The Captain's Rest into a party, armed only with sing-a-long indie-pop. Drummer Joseph Kondras's mother had travelled from the band's hometown of Morecambe, and her temporary refusal from the gig for safety reasons prompted a lovely uprising of singing and dancing in the stairwell.

The migratory nature of a festival crowd meant we all made it into the packed afternoon show soon thereafter, only to be transported into the night and back in time. The dapper quartet channelled Dexy's, Elvis Costello, Orange Juice (they've worked with Edwyn Collins) and The Smiths (they recently toured with Morrissey), and although they didn't pull the punch of such acts, tracks like Remorseful underlined the band's promise. The drummer was fierce yet tight throughout. No wonder his mum looked proud.

Launched as a one-day, three-city festival in 2008, Stag And Dagger appears to have shed its Leeds and London links, but the Glasgow bill offered an impressive range of alternative kicks across the city. While the cancellation of hip-hop anarchists Death Grips dealt a blow, the programme still offered myriad treats – LA alt-rock iconoclast EMA, Brooklyn psyche-rockers Bear In Heaven and London dream-pop diviners Still Corners among them.

Falkirk cult-pop maverick Adam Stafford delivered a magnetic performance that was part David Byrne circa Stop Making Sense; part Wounded Knee. His new material sounded customarily ace – embracing industrial, glam, rock 'n' roll and the KLF – and retained the looped vocals, beats and guitars that have seen him bear art-rock upon the term "one-man band". Vanishing Tanks, his forthcoming split single with Rick Redbeard (The Phantom Band) merged gorgeous alt-country, jock-rock and beatboxing, and all the while Stafford – vest, white shirt, turquoise tie, pocket-knife on a belt-loop, and none of it an accident – danced to his own tunes. He would later hammer his chest by way of percussion, using his heart as an instrument, and fittingly: Stafford is a cardinal talent.

Another stellar one-man band – a one-man dancefloor, if you will – came in the radiant form of recent Chemikal Underground signing Miaoux Miaoux: a Glasgow-based dance-pop trailblazer whose forthcoming album, Light Of The North, is a delirious mix of electro balladry and thrilling choral house anthems. His club-invoking live euphoria followed suit.

The Fiery Furnaces' Eleanor Friedberger served up an enjoyable set of low-slung indie rock 'n' roll, from the wistful drive-pop of 2011's My Mistakes to the lovesick balladry, classic rock and 4AD guitar-work of new song I'll Never Be Happy Again.

Holy Mountain brought a most unholy, riff-pummelling hex upon Nice And Sleazy in what was one of the festival's stand-out shows – vests were shredded, drums were brutalised and Motorhead were riotously conjured – while in the O2 ABC The Phantom Band and Django Django played a two-headed psychedelic electro-rock blinder, reminding us why they are among our greatest bands.

Recent Scottish Album Of The Year (SAY) Award-shortlisted electro alchemists Conquering Animal Sound sounded characteristically excellent (but not loud enough) at the Art School: the duo's glimmering, beat-heavy new material sounds set to rival their brilliant, SAY-nominated debut, Kammerspiel.

They took the stage after Oxford indie-folk troupe Jonquil, whose soulful synth rock was fortified by perhaps the hardest-working man (and would-be one-man band) at Stag And Dagger: a plaid-clad multi-tasker playing maracas, keyboards, miscellaneous percussion and a trumpet all at once. That's just showing off.

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