Bajan four-piece Cover Drive might not yet have hit their countrywoman Rihanna's level of fame, but singer Amanda Reifer already knows how to pace an arena stage like she owns it.

Their R&B-style harmonies and the bouncy backbeat of hit single Twilight would have been plenty to get a crowd going on their own, but Reifer has enough of the MC in her to ensure the excitement is at fever pitch long before a photographic slideshow announces the arrival of Kelly Clarkson on the Braehead stage.

Ten years – and a forthcoming greatest hits package – on from winning the first season of American Idol, Clarkson manages to inspire the sort of loyalty from an incredibly diverse fanbase that verges on the devotional – and with good reason.

There is something so universal about the experiences she touches on in her brand of cathartic, confessional pop, her lyrics and passionate vocal delivery the perfect mixture of self-pity and "screw you", that it would be hard not to feel a connection. Then there's the genuine stage presence and everywoman persona of a singer who is neither emaciated pop puppet nor glorious eccentric with lobster on her head.

It helps, too, that Clarkson has written and performed some of the greatest pop singalongs of the past decade: My Life Would Suck Without You, Behind These Hazel Eyes and I Forgive You form an opening stretch plenty of artists would kill for, and new song Catch My Breath shows she has no plans to stop writing them. A cover of We Are Young by Fun, performed from a platform in the middle of the crowd, is a particular pleaser, while her version of Annie Lennox's Walking on Broken Glass is a delightful hat-tip to her Scottish audience.

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