If Ben E King had turned up and simply asked if we were all doing okay out there, as he did not a few times, most of his audience here probably would have gone away quite happy.

Just hearing that voice speak is quite an experience. Hearing it sing involved, first, sitting through rather a long warm-up from his admittedly very able band, which included Glasgow's own Paul Towndrow on tenor saxophone and Ryan Quigley on trumpet. One number would have been fine, two felt like filler material.

Ninety minutes, as scheduled, from the now 73-year-old King might have been expecting too much. He's more given to crooning than soul-singing histrionics and often reworks a song's melody to suit his range these days, giving his sashaying backing singers the top line. On Broadway sounded like more of a chore than a defiant celebration, but the gig itself was a soul'n'rock'n'roll party, with King leading the sing-song with natural charm.

He may not remember which year he recorded certain songs but as he moved from the Drifters era into his disco phase, he and the band sounded in their element, with Towndrow and Quigley firing off superb solos, and his recollection of his 1970s collaboration with the Average White Band brought forth a cool reading of Keeping It To Myself from their Benny & Us album.

What Is Soul, Spanish Harlem... the hits, his own and other people's, kept on coming, and as Stand By Me gave way to a Wilson Pickett medley, the feeling that we were in the presence of a soul legend was gently reinforced.

HHH