Burnsong Festival @ Queen's Hall

Tonight is the third culmination of Burnsong's attempt at promoting, encouraging and nurturing songwriting in Scotland by locking up a collection of musicians in a house for a week. The quality of the songs tonight is quite remarkable, considering that they have all been written over such a short period. The musicians in question this year are Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake, Idlewild's Roddy Woomble, Jo Mango, Nuala Kennedy, Louise Quinn, L-Marie, FOUND's Ziggy Campbell and the patron of the event, Midge Ure. Most of the songs are pleasant pop songs with dashes of folk, brought to life largely by the quality and variety of the vocals on offer. However, Campbell emerges as the curator of some of the evening's finest moments; his twelve-string guitar work on the Zeppelin-esque November Blues and the quirky Plate Smashing Song is magnificent, while the percussion that comes forth from his laptop gets the heads ringing. The show is well supported by a receptive audience in the comfortable surroundings of the Queens Hall; the acoustics and prestigious environs of which help to bring the show to life and do justice to a fine assembly of songs and their writers. [Neal Parsons]