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I’d been looking forward to this.  Following the enthusiasm I lavished upon Nina Nastasia and Jim White’s recent You Follow Me album, the chance to se them perform it live in the gorgeous Union Chapel in London’s swanky Islington was too enticing to miss.  Her voice and that drumming, with those ecclesiastic acoustics - it couldn’t fail.  Could it?  Well, actually…

Twilight Sad’s was a more acoustic performance than usual, so I’m told.  They may have told us this fact themselves, I’m not sure, and I certainly could not tell you the names of the songs - there was an impenetrable language barrier.  Extravagantly Glasgwegian, and resolutely downbeat, this was like watching a stripped-down stage version of Taggart, but without all the dead giveaway clues that have you yelling “The priest is the killer!” within the first five minutes.  Which probably wouldn’t have been the most appropriate thing to shout in these settings anyway.  Still, they were perversely enjoyable, and the last song built to a cracking shouty climax.

Then we were to hear Jim White playing with Nina Nastasia.  Only Jim White couldn’t hear Nina Nastasia.  And then a vicious hum from the speakers began to render her guitar inaudible to all.  She then appeared unable to tune her guitar by ear, resulting in an extensive embarrassing pause.  Finally another unholy buzz not only wiped out the guitar sound again but threatened to deconsecrate the church itself.  Only after the guitar was unplugged for the last couple of songs did we began to get anything approaching listenability, although by then the moment had passed, and the atmosphere was a bit flat.  Nina Nastasia clearly recognised this; the audience’s fairly half-hearted cry for more being met with “You have got to be kidding me!”, and then after the briefest of encores she really couldn’t leave the stage fast enough.  What a pity.