'Support Act: TBC' – This arrangement of 13 individually-innocuous letters is enough for one to get bleary-eyed and start hearing Bernard Herrmann's strident violins from the shower scene in 'Psycho' fame. Presumably, the reason for such paralysing fear is the belief one harbours that the headliner has left the acquisition of a support act to the very last minute like an imminently due essay. Therefore, they must surely serve up and send out the musical equivalent of an incoherent jumble of words backed up by a few rudimentary references from Wikipedia. The strength of such dread brought on by this lexical omen is great; however, it can be by far surpassed by the strength of relief and joy one gets when, upon arriving at the venue, the support act is revealed as being a personal favourite of his or hers. And so seeing 'Alessi's Ark: 7.45pm' jotted below the name of Laura Veirs on the front door of Rescue Rooms really set the pace for the rest of the night.

True to the door's word, 7.45pm saw Alessi take to the stage in front of a predictably half-empty floor that pleasingly filled up with haste. Dressed in a checkered dress and cardigan combo as sported in her 'Maybe I Know' video, she immediately lavishes the unsuspecting spectators with her gorgeous tales of love told via quirk-laden vocals. Relying more on her debut album Notes From The Treehouse than her stunning 2011 effort Time Travel, the 21-year-old plays beautifully through songs like 'Wire', 'The Robot' and 'The Horse' with virtually every song being followed by a brief break and an allusion to how cold it is (yes, she is British). 'Woman' and 'Constellations' were comfortably the stand-out performances, the latter introducing a theme that Veirs herself would later re-explore (a theme particularly apt considering the moon and Jupiter, hand-in-hand, shone imperiously above the Rescue Rooms throughout).

Alessi's (above) between song interaction tended to be as precocious as each of her albums and she even took to charmingly goading Nottingham for being too timid an audience. At one point, she absent-mindedly takes to fixing an undergarment before shrieking with embarrassment 'Oh God, and I'm rearranging myself in public…' that has the already-endeared crowd erupt into laughter.

During yet another interaction with the transfixed Nottingham throng, Alessi introduces her song 'The Dog' as 'a song about…walking a dog' before giggling at the absurdity of it and apologising for her songs' tackling of the mundane. Such humility and self-awareness perhaps disservices and underplays the complexity of what's really going on in her songs though, and her aching cries of 'I'm only a woman' hints at a sombre intricacy veining through both her music and self: more than the jingle-jangle of her semi-acoustic guitar lets on.

Finishing with 'The Bird Song', a song that eventually descends into Alessi effectively whispering down the microphone, she's seen off with ample applause. Disarming herself (of a guitar, obviously), she weaves through an appreciative audience to her exit; leaving many internally intimating – to use words of her own – 'I'd like to walk around in your beautiful head'.

By now, the venue is, if not rocking, then, swaying with noise and anticipation and it gives me the perfect chance to survey the composition of the crowd. Having just released Tumble Bee, an album of traditional children's songs, then it's perhaps not surprising that a large proportion is of families on a night out together; the remainder is made up of lovers entwined and half a dozen mid-life crises.

Veirs strides out on to the stage purposefully flanked by guitarist Tim Young and violinist, violist and keyboard player Alex Guy. Tumble Bee is hardly delved into at all; most material is plucked from her latest 'adult' album July Flame, not that this leaves the junior members of her audience chagrined. As triumvirates go, this one's particularly felicitous in both musical terms and otherwise. While Veirs is the slightly more earnest focal point, the importance of Guy and Young is never overlooked, something Veirs herself no doubt realises and this is demonstrated as she often gives them several individual moments in the limelight. Beyond this, the pre- and post-song dialogue never ceases to entertain; Veirs the instigator, Young the conversational quarry and Guy the dealer of witty ripostes.

It's not only with each other they interact, during 'Life Is Good Blues', she implores the, until now, reserved audience to give a helping hand with the 'buh buh buh bit'. On one of the two songs from Tumble Bee, she also asks for the upbeat to be clapped and, when they do, she applauds them sweetly.

'Sun Is King' beautifully picks up the celestial theme dropped by Alessi's Ark and the sentiment of it all is lost on nobody. Meanwhile, fellow tracks from the same album, July Flame, are all uniformly effective, perhaps down to their relative freshness. Older songs from Carbon Glacier such as 'Ether Sings' and 'Lonely Angel Dust', perhaps suffer from a little rustiness and their misfortune to be in such close proximity to the likes of 'Carol Kaye' – a paean to the much-admired bassist.

Overall, the performances never stray from excellent and it's almost enough to take Young up on his offer of guitar lessons on Skype. It is, at times, enough for one to want to bottle it and use it when required as a balm to soothe thy weary soul. There are criticisms to be found if you dig deep enough though, I counted the use of 5 or 6 bad ice metaphors (including the support act's) and in my most intermittently cynical moods I pretend to be surprised that the room isn't decorated with dream catchers and feathers.

One of the most interesting performances of the night was courtesy of 'Jailhouse Fire', a song she introduces as being about Alex Guy and as the song progresses, she leads us to imagine Guy committing more and more outlandish transgressions.

As the night approaches its end, Laura Veirs brings out her two most celebrated songs in 'Make Something Good' and the exceptional 'I Can See Your Tracks', if you've not heard the latter I really suggest you do. Feeling that this isn't enough, she also unveils a bubble machine to everyone's amusement (including hers) and allows it to fill up the room with bubbles for the duration of the finale. To the hard-nosed, this may seem tawdry but there, in the moment, it somehow works and adds to all that's gone before. A fine evening.