Music

Texas and the BBC SSO

Barrowland, Glasgow

Jonathan Geddes

four stars

A SUITABLE format seems to have been found for BBC Music Day each year.: find a popular Scottish band with a hefty back catalogue, add the SSO, and drop them into a roasting hot Barrowland. Last year it was Travis and this time Texas took the honours (perhaps next year we’ll get Teenage Fanclub to keep the T theme going), with Stephen Bell conducting the SSO.

The biggest strength was that this time the songs were genuinely revamped to play off the orchestra, rather than merely adding some strings on top. An opening of I Don’t Want A Lover was powered more by brass than guitar, before swoonsome newbie Let’s Work It Out displayed a languid pace, aided by both strings and a snippet of Orange Juice classic Rip It Up.

Some of the material, like set-closer Say What You Want, made for a natural fit with the orchestra, but there was a freshness about the arrangements, whether typical stomper Summer Son or Inner Smile’s lusty sing-a-long. It helped make the show feel unique while mostly avoiding awkward style clashes, save for new track Tell That Girl, hamstrung by a few technical issues.

Spiteri, of course, doesn’t change as a frontwoman, although she did have to keep it clean as the show was being broadcast on radio. Anyone who has seen Texas play live before will know that is a Herculean task, but her understanding of how to work a crowd shone through, particularly important at a show where tickets had been given away as a competition. That sometimes creates a casual atmosphere, a pitfall avoided through Spiteri’s ceaseless energy.

She still comes across as a woman having a great time onstage and not giving a damn what anyone else thinks, whether apologising to the orchestra for her "builder’s bum" or revelling in a cry of "gaun yersel hen" she heard from a crowd member. A few in the crowd tried to get a chant going in recognition of Bell too, something unlikely to replicated in the City Halls anytime soon.

By that point the radio audience had departed, missing a closing encore that climaxed with a good time cover of Suspicious Minds. Orchestra or no, free tickets or not, it was a finale fit for any Barrowland show – raucous, sweaty and loud.