Reading, Friday night: gangs of boys in stripey shirts and waxy hairdos prowl the streets, snaking in and out of bars in search of gangs of girls in short skirts, hair extensions and impossible shoes. People cram into sweaty bars, shouting at their friends all evening over the thud-thud-thud of cheesegrater music everyone pretends to like but probably doesn't. Lights flash, bouncers glare. Much the same as any other town in the UK, really.

In a side alley not far from the main drag is South Street, a small venue run by Reading Arts and the Borough Council. Its high ceilings, big windows, lino floors and painted brickwork give it the feel of an old-fashioned school and it's like another world, completely divorced from the rest of Friday-night Reading. It is laid-back, dark and relaxed, with a tiny, tuck-shop style bar at the back of the room. At the front, people sit on candlelit tables drinking lager out of cans, waiting for James Yorkston, who is performing tonight on the back of his third album The Year of the Leopard.

South Street is not rammed to bursting point, but there's a healthy crowd of about 100. As Yorkston weaves his way from the back of the room to the stage he cuts a gentle giant sort of figure, a big, lumbering, unassuming Scotsman, guitar slung across his back, accompanied by his accordion player, Rueben Taylor.

The 90-minute set mines Yorkston's back catalogue and as the evening wears on it's impossible to escape the increasing feeling that the people who've come to watch were all invited here rather than paying £8 a head to do so: Yorkston's easy, jovial manner is engaging, and he chats away like an old friend you've not seen for a while. It's a little bit like being let into someone's journal; the songs strike that clever balance between the personal and the universal, and Yorkston's wheezy, murmured acoustics provide the perfect backdrop for the stories he weaves with his lyrics.

The show has a natural, unrehearsed feel - Yorkston messes up and abandons a couple of songs but nobody seems to mind, and the pair onstage are happy to improvise and take requests (though one, for the ten-minute The Lang Toun, is turned down). The singer's self-deprecating sense of humour fits well with his low-key, downbeat music and you can't help smiling as he contrasts himself with labelmates Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys, knowingly smiling at the fact that his latest album won't sell nearly as much as theirs. He also talks about how - as a vegan - he turned down £10,000 from Kerrygold to use one of his songs to advertise butter, and you get the sense that he genuinely does play music for the love of it rather than for money.

Highlights of the evening include Surf Song (which, Yorkston explains, is about skinny dipping), recent single Steady As She Goes and the singer's banter with the man he appoints as the 'audience spokesman'. The final song of the set is the lilting, climbing and harmonic Sweet Jesus from Moving Up Country, after which Yorkston attempts to hide at the side of the stage for a bit before shambling back on for a well-received encore.

It's initially hard to adjust back to Friday-night Reading as South Street's doors open out into the post-gig night. It would be tempting to go back inside and beg James Yorkston to play for the rest of the evening just so you could surround yourself with the music for a few hours more. You get the feeling he'd probably say yes if you asked, too. If only there were more like him.

(0) comments - discuss in the forum