Music

John Legend

SSE Hydro, Glasgow

Stuart Morrison

Four Stars

"Glasgow, I want to be the best you've ever had" was the modest target which John Legend had set himself in opening proceedings at the Hydro. Not an unreasonable ambition, in the circumstances and there were ten thousand or so fans in the venue who gave every impression that he had achieved it.

John Legend was very, very, smooth. And we are talking smooth here, with an extended "oo". His show, looked, felt, sounded and very possibly, tasted, smooth. Like honey. Almost too much, in fact, but this was more than compensated by the sheer quality of his voice and the superb eight piece band, who backed him so ably. They set up the laid back groove from the beginning and maintained it for fully two hours, through songs like Hard Times, Used to Love U and Through the Rain. Legend's voice was by turns mellow and powerful, but always controlled. He previewed a new song, Please Don't Go, which he performed solo at the piano, but the crowd, having shown considerable restraint to that point, were finally roused by two covers, Curtis Mayfield's Move on Up and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, both of which highlighted both that voice and that band.

However, the encore proved to be worth the price of admission alone. Firstly, All of Me, again performed solo, was beautiful, Legend's voice soaring into the rafters of the Hydro. And finally, Glory, the song he produced for the Martin Luther King biopic, was a magnificent closer. Written, he said, to highlight injustice in the United States, it was an incredibly powerful and pertinent testament to King's struggle then and the ongoing tragedy of the struggle today.