Jim Noir

Jim Noir

Broadcast, Glasgow

Keith Moore

It being the first night of the tour and the first tour in several years means that the term "slick" is going to be something of a stranger in what follows. But that was not necessarily to the detriment of Wednesday night's occasionally shambolic show which saw Manc cult figure Jim Noir return to the public arena (albeit a basement on Sauchiehall Street).

Noir kinda fits somewhere into that Donald Rumsfeld conundrum of known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

While certainly not the latter, he might fall somewhere between the first two. Because everybody knows a Jim Noir tune, although they might not necessarily know it.

The man has been ubiquitous for nigh on a decade, planting his earworms into contemporary culture, gifting his catchy, hook-laden tunes to ad men for global household leisure products and as themes on high-brow radio stations.

For his return, with an album called The Finnish Line, Noir has distilled the essence of The Beatles somewhere between Abbey Road and Let It Be. But it is more than pastiche performed with some aplomb by his four-piece band.

Chuck in some humour (was that a rhyming couplet of "up the duff" and " she's had enough"?) and a nod to The Monkees in their Head period and you're just about there if you're looking for reference points.

All those influences are to be found in brilliant new single, Broadway Jets.

If all this is sounding like un grand melange, it was. But unfailing good humour saw us through to a not quite an encore of crowd pleasers that included Eanie Meany, the wonderfully clever Key of C and a Velvets-style wig-out on My Patch.