Monday night’s show at King Tut’s in Glasgow was actually the first time I’d  seen a proper solo Kristin Hersh performance. Whilst previously I’ve seen her play with a band as well as two of the Paradoxical Undressing performances (Glasgow and Edinburgh) last year, I’d never seen her play a full set armed with just a guitar. My expectations therefore were based somewhat around the marvellous Noe Valley Ministry set.

So in that light the show had a surprising opening. Firstly Kristin was playing an electric rather than acoustic guitar and the first few numbers were quite low key drawn from some of her recent material as well as her second record of Appalachian folk tunes ‘The Shady Circle’. This run of songs emphasized what a singular performer Kristin is – her performance was almost subdued with limited audience interaction, yet at the same time both intense and riveting.

Thereafter, starting with ‘The Cuckoo’, the set took on more varied moods with more chat before it finished with what almost qualifies as a run of greatest hits including the likes of ‘Gazebo Tree’ ‘Your Dirty Answer’, ‘Me and My Charms’, ‘Poor Wayfaring Stranger’, ‘Your Ghost’ and pleasingly (not just for me!) ‘Slippershell’. Yet there were also a couple of new ones in there as well just to keep you a little off balance.

With only one TM song in the main body of the set (‘City of the Dead’), the encore was given over to three Muses songs, all unified by a lack of something supposedly critical in the original recordings. ‘Mexican Women’ was first up (minus Dave’s drums) whilst ‘Walking In The Dark’ was, obviously, piano free. ‘Pearl’ meanwhile lacked the freak-out that a full band performance would bring yet all three illustrated Kristin’s strengths as a song-writer.

Like I say, I’m not quite sure what I expected from Monday – but I was pleased that I didn’t expect what we got.

Here’s a song from the show (with extremely muffled vocals):

Kristin Hersh – Me and My Charms (live at King Tut’s, 18th May 2009)

and the original recording from the ‘Hips and Makers’ LP [Buy it] [Download]

Kristin Hersh – Me and My Charms

Opening act was Beerjacket, apparently the music’s name rather than the performer’s (which is Peter Kelly). I was aware of one song ‘Belong In’ from the Mister Tramp collection ‘Off The Beaten Track’ beforehand and although he didn’t play it, the set was not dissimilar in tone. Echoes too in there of Evan Crichton.

Solo performers always fare better when they can inject their own personality into shows and that Peter managed that was a big factor in getting the crowd on his side. His debut LP ‘Animosity’ is out next month and could be well worth checking out.