Gillian Welch @ Clyde Auditorium, 20 November

With each successive visit to Glasgow, Gillian Welch’s fanbase has increased exponentially; and given the eight-year gap between 2003’s Soul Journey and current LP The Harrow and the Harvest, there’s been plenty of time for it to build before this tour. Consequently, tonight’s show (her first at the Armadillo) is a large-scale seated affair, and the crowd are so hushed that it confuses Welch: “we remember you being a rowdy bunch”, she comments in surprise.

The audience’s quiet attentiveness, combined with the stripped-back simplicity of the show – there’s no support, and no band, save for Welch’s ever-present musical partner David Rawlings – brings out the haunting melancholy of the more downbeat songs. The Way It Will Be, evoking the minor phrasings of Neil Young’s On The Beach, works particularly well in this context.

The American folk tradition with which Welch firmly identifies herself, however, feeds as much upon that kind of melancholy as it does upon the sort of boisterousness for which Glasgow audiences are known; hence her determination to rouse the crowd. Songs like I Want To Sing That Rock And Roll eventually do so: and her gorgeously rich vocals, along with Rawlings’ flawlessly rendered solos, ensure that the venue’s formality is eventually overcome.