Enjoying excellent sound in Edinburgh's finest live venue the touring sextet of The War On Drugs brought Lost In The Dream to a near sell-out Scottish crowd for the second time in only four months.

Appearing before a crescent channel shape backdrop of ever changing colours there was at times a feeling that you were watching a performance from some Seventies TV showcase, something the transparent orange drumkit with Charlie Hill sat behind it like a diminutive John Bonham did little to dispel. Seldom has a drummer drawn my attention from the foreground players as much as his performance did last night, although having an elevated position from which to watch the show obviously made that easier.

Not that it was easy to take your eyes off of Adam Granduciel as he delivered a performance that really brought the guitar work from Lost In The Dream and Slave Ambient to its obvious limit. Not fully experiencing an album until you witness it's tracks delivered live was certainly the feeling you gained right from the start. Having apparently been a bit off form and irritated by photographers at the tour's Newcastle show he was totally relaxed and enjoyed an ongoing dialogue with the audience about ice cream, nut allergies and the correct pronunciation of the city's name.

As the Usher Hall isn't the sort of venue to seek two crowds per night with a club after gigs there was no sense of the band being rushed to wind things up and, including the encore, there was practically two hours of performance which is pretty good going by any reckoning. Criticism from fellow audience members on the way out of the show focused mainly on the front-loading of the set with the band's faster numbers, causing the final third of the main set and the encore to be mid-paced rather than building to a crescendo but the impression remains that the same size of gathering would turn out if they were to come back in another four months.

Support tonight came from Amen Dunes for half an hour. They also enjoyed very clear sound for their performance but were a bit dwarfed by the size of the hall and possibly a too laidback choice in terms of actually warming up the audience (or the 50% that bothered to be in the hall to see them), despite speeding things up as they went through their set. The slightly more intimate surroundings of the Liverpool Psychfest last year suited the likes of 'I Know Myself' (from current release Cowboy Worship) better but they didn't seem to mind.

Further images from the gig can be found here.

Having had the privilege of seeing First Aid Kit not so long ago at Maida Vale studios in London, performing to 100 people, I was keen to see if they could transfer their sound to a larger venue. And the answer is they can and impressively so.

It's been almost five years since First Aid Kit were in Edinburgh when they played Sneaky Pete's in the Cowgate. This time around the crowd was at least 20 times bigger and a far more spectacular venue too.

Arriving on stage to a rather ghostly scene of smoke and blue lights the Soderberg sisters, backing band of local boy Scott Simpson and Melvin Duffy, launched straight into 'Lion's Roar'. From then on in it was a hugely tight performance with plenty of crowd interaction that shows the sisters to be pretty down-to-earth people.

A trip to the newly opened cat cafe in Stockbridge was a highlight and may prompt a career move should Johanna and Klara become tired of making excellent, evocative music.

Continuing to play their most memorable hits 'Stay Gold' and 'Waitress Song' were interrupted by a version of 'Ghost Town' performed without microphones. I had long wondered whether the sisters could fill a hall with just their voices alone and this version proved it. They even managed to get the crowd singing along too, a rather spine chilling moment.

It seems that Jack White is held in high regard and a jokey version of ' Seven Nation Army' was attempted before being cut short for the real cover version, 'Love Interruption'.

Drawing it all to a close was an extended version of 'Wolf Mother' with a big guitar solo by Melvin Duffy and then a pounding drum solo brought huge applause from the crowd.

First Aid Kit delivered a wonderfully powerful gig, full of audio images of wagon trains, small-town diners and lonely souls and I half expected a bar brawl to break out at any moment.

Fingers crossed it won't be another five years before they return. And by their appreciation of Irn-Bru I'm sure it won't be.