Music
Rag N’ Bone Man
O2 ABC, Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes
three stars
IN RECENT years the Critic’s Choice prize at the Brits has become a musical shorthand, indicating acts poppy enough for Radio 1 while authentic enough for Radio 2. This year’s winner, Rag 'N’ Bone Man (aka Rory Graham), has got more to him than the likes of James Bay or Tom Odell, for which we should be extremely thankful, but there were a few doubts here too.
Graham’s songs possess such angst you suspect he spends his spare time brooding on shadowy rooftops, however as a performer he is a cheerful, bright figure. Built like a rugby prop and with a beaming smile throughout, the set conveyed a love of soul and blues (it was bookended by blues covers) with mild rapping and some pop, focused around a raw, wounded voice of indisputable power.
Human, his breakthrough hit, was performed with substantial weight, greeted by an array of mobile phones wobbling in the air, but some of the night’s starker moments worked best, including the resounding, hymnal Lay My Body Down, or the personal simplicity of Odetta, written about a friend’s daughter.
These let Graham deal out legitimate emotion, but the lengthy set couldn’t rely entirely on that. As a pop singer he was less convincing, and several arrangements, such as the unconvincing soul-pop of Ego or polished Fade To Nothing, were banal, while piano ballad Skin felt like an overwrought male take on Adele.
He also faced the sold out crowd occasionally chattering away during quieter moments, an issue that will grow as the venues get bigger. That will be hard to resolve, but you hope he can find more of a consistent musical spark, and balance that striking voice with equally interesting tunes.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here