Positively Sixth Street

The SXSW festival hits delirium level on Thursday night and sustains it for the rest of the week. Remember this all takes place in a city with the most unusual mission statement: 'Keep Austin Weird'. And in deference to that idea, many visitors (some say that 200 000 people swing by across the week) are happy, addled or talking in tongues.

There is a blur of sensations, like the joy of seeing Edwin Collins in good humour and singing Orange Juice songs. In the al fresco space of Stubbs, there was fine music from Noah And The Whale plus the Vaccines, roistering into the warm evening air.

We also met with first generation hippies from San Francisco, still putting the world to rights. There were men in kilts, hustlers from Canada and the chance to meet again with Alan Galbraith, reared on the Woodstock Road, Belfast but now working out of Madison Avenue, New York. He's employed by Wind Up Records and his business card tells us that he's Senior Vice President for International & Business Development. Good work, fella.

There were many troubadours out there. I favoured Alessi's Ark and Rachel Sermanni but there was only voice on the Friday night and that was John Grant, sometime leader of The Czars, and author of that amazing album, 'Queen Of Denmark'.

Tonight he's at the very lovely Central Presbyterian Hall and he's joined by Midlake, who were effectively his backing band for the record. Collectively they rule. Sweet tunes, gripping vocals and lyrics about sweet shops, major tantrums and psychic malaise. To be truthful, some of those words were rather challenging in this quiet location, but John Grant is an artist and apparently, he don't look back.