Gig review: Example, Glasgow SECC

By Fiona Shepherd
Published on 18/02/2013 00:32

ELLIOT Gleave, aka Example, is not your typical pop-star fodder, but where hit machine Calvin Harris has led, this belligerent dance-pop practitioner of dubious vocal ability has followed, with less catchy tunes.

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Unlike Harris and his revolving door of guest vocalists, Example fronts all his songs, which would have made this show more of a chore, were the audience not so intent on singing and bouncing along to the formulaic backing of epic old-school rave keyboards, dubstep bass drops and muscular drumming.

If Gleave is a (self-confessed) monotonous singer, perpetually on the edge of tunelessness, he is only marginally more exciting as a rapper, delivering his rhymes in short, indistinct bursts. His subject matter is personal rather than strictly party-orientated – the relatively hardcore Come Taste The Rainbow refers to past drug abuse and his childhood autism, but you would be hard-pressed to discern this against the blaring club soundtrack which accompanies his confessional.

That said, Example’s priority was not highlighting lyrical nuances but keeping the techno-party pumping with tracks such as the quaking synth rocker Close Enemies, which easily filled the SECC’s largest hall, stoking a sense of clubby community, with MC exhortations to “make some noise if your mum’s Scottish” and embellishing the whole presentation with pyrotechnics and a strobe and laser lightshow which showed that he meant business as a fledgling arena act.