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The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Nick Dempsey offers his impressions of the final event

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Last night saw a celebratory occasion tinged with a little sadness as we bid farewell to Triptych forever. A reflection of the diversity of acts that this festival has brought to Scotland over its eight year lifespan, some of the programming of the night felt a bit ad hoc which resulted in occasional odd gear changes. But overall it was a grand send-off, with Candi Staton providing a suitably emotional goodbye.

The cafe played host to a plethora of Glasgow indie band DJs, which I must admit I largely missed due to being in other arches. I did hear Triptych veteran Sushil Dade aka Future Pilot AKA open proceedings with an eclectic selection of quality tunes. Meanwhile on the main stage Johnnie Wilkes got toes tapping to Can in a lightning Optimo stealth attack before he and Twitch jetted off round the corner to host Teutonic techno gods Alter Ego at the Subbie.

One of those aforementioned weird juxtapositions next, as the gallows humour of Aidan Moffat in the packed Playroom was closely followed by catchy Glasgow disco-rockers 1990s in the main arch. They were chirpy as ever, despite front man Jackie's missing front tooth.

Now I'm not often impressed by this sort of thing, but one of the best touches at this event was the multimedia stuff. Only extremely tall people or the two front rows can normally get a view of the stage in the main arch. But tonight cleverly mounted cameras pointing at the artists were projected onto the big screens, resulting in some very amusing images. Looping video effects made 1990s' Jackie pull comedy robotic Status Quo guitar moves, for instance, which quite literally made me laugh. Between artists we were treated to an endless montage of beautiful pictures from Triptych gigs past.

After 1990s Kieran Hebden took to the DJ pit in front of the main stage. I'd heard new Four Tet material was a bit more techno, and indeed this was the case, though he kept us all hangin' by going off on abstract tangents whenever it felt like it was about to kick off. Thanks to the clever cameras again, even small punters like myself could get a look at what he was up to. Like a man possessed he tweaked his weird light-matrix performance gadget (it's called a Tenori-On, tech-spotters).

Another change of gear as the Fence Collective took the stage. Less of a change than I expected actually, as the Fife folksters were here appearing in their electric guise, as evidenced by King Creosote tweaking his Korg. If they were expecting cries of 'Judas!' a la Bob Dylan goes electric (comment courtesy Sushil Dade), they were disappointed, as the crowd were loving it.

We then took a little diversion into psychedelia, as hirsute New Yorkers Skeletons and the Kings Of All Cities were having a bit of a freakout in the Playroom (the theatre bit of the Arches, darling, where they have plays normally), before Subclub DJs Kinky Afro took to the decks. We hear they had a bit of a techno cabaret on the go by the end with silly costumes and whatnot, appropriately enough for the Thesbo setting.

Sadly we missed all that, as we were back in the main arch checking out Glasgow-based indie choir The Parsonage. 40-strong and named in honour of Gram Parsons, this is an admirable undertaking, repositioning the institution of the choir in a non-Church context. Unfortunately someone had neglected to mic them up sufficiently and there was a lot of puzzlement in the packed main arch, though the final song, their rendition of Love Will Tear Us Apart, really stood out (at least to those of us lucky enough to be standing right at the front).

There followed an incongruous banging techno interlude before the headliner took the stage - the main arch was absolutely rammed as Ms Candi Staton stepped up to the mic. With a trio of excellent backing singers and a razor-sharp band (maybe a little too slick?), she rattled through a set well over an hour long with unflagging energy. By this time the Glasgow crowd were really living up to the oft-repeated reputation for warmth, joining in the choruses and offering up huge cheers between songs. Despite my attempts to retain an unhealthy journalistic cynicism I must admit my eyes were a bit damp (to paraphrase Aidan Moffat…) as she finished on 'You Got The Love'. I'm a nostalgic sap and this song reminds me of some very good times...

Next up to the plate was Derrick May. How can you follow that, I thought? Surely Mr May will pull out all the stops and play us a set of Detroit classics from the vaults. I was sadly disappointed as we were treated to half an hour of generic thudding techno - perhaps Mr May had taken 'The Arches' to mean 'monotonous and pumping…'? And maybe he played some classics before the end after I left…Anyway it was a small quibble really, I went home smiling, but wondering if the departure of Triptych will leave a gaping hole in the music calendar.

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Closing Party

Candi Staton