Music
Tori Kelly
O2 ABC, Glasgow
Nicola Love
Three stars
YOUTUBE stars are a dime a dozen nowadays, though it is fair to say that Tori Kelly got in there first.
Armed with a webcam and an acoustic guitar, she first captured the world’s attention eight years ago performing covers of her favourite songs. Coupled with a short lived appearance on American Idol, it would be easy to dismiss Kelly entirely – that is, until you hear her sing for yourself.
Bounding onstage to the kind of adolescent screams usually reserved for members of One Direction, Kelly quickly asserts herself as a warm, wild-haired, vocal acrobat. Opening with an acapella intro of Where I Belong, a penchant for vocal runs is immediately evident; her powerful, sometimes soulful, voice quickly establishing itself as the star of the show.
The set, mainly are drawn from debut album Unbreakable Smile, comprises largely of slow-paced numbers, prone perhaps to straying too far into cutesy territory. There is a welcome hark back to Kelly’s “YouTube days” when her band leave the stage and, perched on a stool with her guitar, the singer performs older material like crowdpleaser Confetti and a fun medley featuring covers of songs by Justin Timberlake and Frank Ocean – her renditions of which racked up millions of online video views long before she had the capacity to fill venues of her own.
The true highlights of the evening come in the form of the upbeat, groovy Anyway and the encore’s pop-rock break-up anthem Should’ve Been Us. Unfortunately those moments feel too few and far between to keep energy levels up and the pace of the set feels a little disjointed as a result. That said, there is no doubt: Kelly hits all the right notes and then some.
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