“It was a bit leary,” Georgie Fame recalls of a 1960 visit to Glasgow. “They had these cast-iron ash-trays at the Empire...” Teddy boys offended by Fame’s starry effect on the local girls led to these being skimmed at the band, bisecting a cymbal, he explains almost fondly, of the night police with dogs were needed to ensure that he at least left the city intact.

“The reason we’ve been away so long,” explained Fran Healy halfway through last night’s gig, “is we wanted to take time off to enjoy our kids.” Such non-rock’n’roll sentiments are, of course, the sort of thing you might expect from a band once dubbed the “nicest in the world”.  What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was the amount of fire and passion that would surface during the night. Really.

It says something about the commodification of modern music that Scottish poppets Camera Obscura are probably best known for "French Navy" because it is used by wine company Echo Falls on the sponsored intros to Come Dine With Me. It is a brilliantly romantic rush of a song and I tweeted that it was a shame it was linked to selling booze. Comedian/fan Josie Long, not one to condone corporate sell-outs, responded "I just think 'I hope this means you are funded enough to write your beautiful songs!'"

The spirit of Glasgow has never been better caught on screen than in two movies local director Charlie Gormley made in the Eighties. His Heavenly Pursuits from 1986, starring Tom Conti and Helen Mirren, may be better known, but Living Apart Together, from four years earlier, is a low-key delight that knows how to steal the heart.

The line-up for this year's Glasgow International Comedy Festival has been announced. The festival, now in its 11th year, takes place 14-31 March with 411 show at 46 venues in Scotland's second city.

With a hollered “hello Glasgow” and immediate launch into “Magpie”, the emotionally ragged song that opens this year’s Sugaring Season, it was as if Beth Orton had never been away. On this last date of her UK tour, the night before her 42nd birthday, Orton’s notoriously husky singing voice was unsurprisingly even throatier, more tremulous than usual. It had the effect of lending even more intimacy to cuts from a new album that, after a six-year gap and particularly tumultuous personal circumstances, emerged bathed in the quiet glow of domestic bliss.

Guitar virtuoso RM Hubbert is something of an unlikely champion of quiet music. In fact, if you haven’t yet heard the gorgeous Thirteen Lost and Found, the Chemikal Underground debut on which the guitarist invited friends including Aidan Moffat, Alex Kapranos and Alasdair Roberts to supplement the instrumentals with which he made his name, you might wonder what Hubbert - a heavily-tattooed onetime member of various Glasgow hardcore bands - is doing co-curating a festival with the unlikely label of Shhh!

Before Glasvegas took off James Allan played professional football in Scotland. He did not quite make the highest echelon in his soccer career and after a blistering start, when his band was championed as the Next Great Guitar Group, things haven't been looking too hopeful in his music career either. Glasvegas was dropped by Columbia Records after their second album, and when I heard they were playing this small club in the run-up to the 2013 release of their third album, Later...When The TV Turns To Static, I wondered if maybe their record label had a point.

Arditti String Quartet, Wigmore Hall, 31 October ****

November is always a good month for new music. This year saw the interest begin a day earlier. Whichever wag chose to hand over Halloween at the Wigmore Hall to two of the most uncompromising contemporary string quartets, however, was denied a fitting punchline. The young JACK Quartet were grounded in New York by Sandy, and the venerable Ardittis chose to programme works that weren't half as terrifying as hoped.

Kevin Bridges, an affable young Glaswegian, has had a meteoric rise in comedy. He started gigging at 17, made his solo Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2009, where he played in a 50-seater and earned an Edinburgh Comedy Awards newcomer nomination, and returned the following year to a sold-out run in a 700-seat theatre.