Alex Giannascoli could likely make his fortune writing nothing but indie rock anthems were it not for some bone-deep weirdness that won’t allow it. The Philadelphia musician expressed both sides of his songwriting (the gift for melody and the drift into leftfield) at this Glasgow show.

The first anthem arrived early, ‘Runner’ prompting a singalong so faithful that it included the screams with which Giannascoli follows the refrain ‘I have done a couple bad things’. He, in turn, riffed on the Glaswegian crowd chant ‘here we, here we, here we fuckin’ go’ during ‘Brick’ and ‘Horse’, a brace of heavy prog that demonstrated his unwillingness to stay in a genre lane.

^{Pictures: Stewart Fullerton}

Alex G is often described as ‘lo-fi’, implying a vague and insular slackerdom, but that is not the experience of seeing him live. His band (Sam Acchione on guitar, John Heywood on bass, Tom Kelly on drums) are tight and drilled. Often, Giannascoli turned his back to the audience, locked-in with the others, working through long expressive instrumental passages that suggested classic rather than alt-rock. ‘Forgive’, closing the main set, could have been Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

The encore? Unusual. Thirty minutes long, the first half saw Giannascoli seated at the keyboard, performing jazzy earlier work, and the whole thing felt loose and jammed. You could sense the energy in the room draining away. It wasn’t really a mis-step, though, being all of a piece with this singular artist’s need to follow his muse where it leads him. 

Alex G is on tour until Thursday 23 March; reviewed at SWG3, Glasgow.