Glasgow Garden Festival '18 @ The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 11 Aug

The Glad Cafe in the southside of Glasgow is the perfect venue to Jamie Scott's new album, Glasgow Garden Festival '18. With Support from Two Kings and Adam Stafford, Scott hosts the event to celebrate 30 years since the original Glasgow Garden Festival was held in 1988. Through a combination of art installations and live performances, the evening is a cultural conscious-raising elegy to the forgotten festival, capturing the true spirit of Scotland’s ‘second summer of love,’ complete with an opening ceremony from a fake Charles and Diana.

The stage is surrounded by artificial flowers and lit in a hue of new romantic pink which transports us back to the year 1988. The venue is dressed to recreate the plan of the original festival, including a small replica of the Clydesdale Bank Tower which provides a panoramic view of the city alongside images which are projected onto a screen, as well as the silhouette of Adam Stafford as he readies himself.

Standing alone on stage with his guitar, Stafford looks fairly unassuming until the layers of electronic sound he creates using a variety of pedals and effects builds to a startling crescendo. The musician blends with the projected images of a post-industrial Glasgow like the live accompaniment to a silent film.

Jamie Scott steps down from the mixing desk where he's been assisting with his own soundcheck. He's joined on stage by Roy Shearer on drums, Karra Fife on trumpet and Joni Lindsay, who provides additional vocals on three songs; all have learned the set only to be played through once (for the purpose of tonight's event). Scott stands behind a seemingly complex set-up, conducting songs from Glasgow Garden Festival '18, all written, recorded and mixed himself.

As if the sheer scope of Scott's vision isn't impressive enough, he closes the evening with a mesmerising cover of Aztec Camera’s Somewhere in my Heart to conclude a monumental set of poetic one-liners in a fitting commemoration of the legacy and optimism inspired by the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival.