Last Night From Glasgow 10th Birthday Bash review: ‘more than a pat on the back’

Over the past decade, a subscription independent record label from Glasgow, named after a line from Abba’s Super Trouper, has grown into a prolific cottage industry, providing a platform for new artists from home and away, scooping up some grizzled veterans and unearthing some under appreciated Scottish classics as well as smartly marketing their vinyl catalogue, all with a small but supremely dedicated team.

The 10th birthday party of Last Night From Glasgow, compered with alacrity by label artist Billy Reeves, was more than a pat on the back. As Bluebells mainstay Robert Hodgens asserted from the stage, this was a community. For Glasgow-based indie four-piece Brontës, this was also an album launch, showcasing their pleasant pop songs about falling for a friend, the harm that men do and “a jigsaw I couldn’t finish”.

Representing international operations, special guest Pearl Charles tipped her stetson to a rapt audience. This Californian singer/songwriter and her band straddled twanging, strutting country, freewheeling rootsy pop, wah-wah funk and even a touch of Dolly disco on Only For Tonight across a dexterous and charismatic set.

The rest of the evening was given over to the Last Night From Glasgow all-star cavalcade, a tasting menu of a handful of the homegrown artists the label has worked with, showcasing their wares in ten-minute stripped-back slots, from the delicate and haunting songs of singer/songwriters Amy Duncan and Xan Tyler to the classy Scotpop crooning of Hipsway/Cowboy Mouth frontman Graeme Skinner and Friends Again/Bathers mainstay Chris Thomson.

Sister John offered spare despair and alt.country warmth and Scottish punk icon Fay Fife delivered some rockabilly wisdom in her Countess of Fife guise before a boutique line-up of The Bluebells rounded off the celebrations with some mandolin-embellished new material and a massed rendition of their evergreen Young At Heart featuring their LNFG sonic siblings.