His hair has changed, and the band is different, yet thankfully the voice of Tom Jones remains unaltered.
The Welshman’s decision to reveal his now natural silver hair may serve as a recognition of his advancing years, but his prowess as a formidable if slightly smug entertainer lies intact.
It wasn’t the finest of beginnings, however. Opening with Sugar Daddy, Jones’s delivery seemed unsteady, even if the line regarding his “sexual ambition” inevitably provoked a cascade of screams from the predominately female audience.
He was far more comfortable when Thunderball rumbled in as the third number, and his pipes haven’t lost that heavy-set toughness, while a rousing Delilah deserved the hysterical screams it provoked
from an enthusiastic crowd.
Aside from the hair, and the fact he frequently needed to refresh his voice with sips of water, Jones belied the fact he is now 69 years old.
He continued to break into his dancing with a confident, charismatic swagger, and several of his double entendre quips were followed with a lascivious chuckle.
His apparent self-satisfaction did hamper the evening, though, particularly on the love-letter to his voice, Never, a tune not helped by synths borrowed from a tacky 1980s police film. It was the worst offender of a mostly flabby middle portion, that brought an over-wrought disco beat on Burning Down The House, a perfunctory run-through of soul standard Hard to Handle and a cumbersome acoustic section.
Thankfully, the string of crowd-pleasers that followed picked matters up, with the exuberant dance of If I Only Knew stomping by, and You Can Leave Your Hat On typically raunchy, and inevitably provoking underwear being launched onstage.
But it was an earlier moment that carried the most impact, on the mournful, solemn air of the title track of last year’s 24 Hours album. A bleak meditation on approaching death, its cold vibe ironically proved that there is still some life yet in Jones as an artist yet.
Tom Jones,
SECC, Glasgow
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Jonathan Geddes
