Gig review: Olympic Torch Relay Concert, George Square, Glasgow

By Ryan Drever
Published on 11/06/2012 03:26

Whether or not the sentimentality of the Olympic Torch relay is lost on you, you have to question the decision-making involved in the George Square ceremonial concert.

Olympic Torch Relay Concert

George Square, Glasgow

***

You could argue that having Blur or New Order headline the closing ceremony isn’t any more apt than having Emeli Sandé and Eliza Doolittle head up Glasgow’s tribute to the Olympic flame.

However, to have the option of picking artists that truly inspire or even truly represent the city and its culture, yet opt for what, on paper at least, appears to be crowd-pleasing generic chart-botherers seems to fall flat on delivering any kind of powerful symbolic message that the Olympics once had and clearly still claims.

Still, that being said, you would have had great difficulty faulting Sandé.

Not only was her vocal performance measured and on point, but she was perfectly complemented by a cool and confident live band who saw to it that hers was an organic and classy performance, and not drowning in backing tracks. This nearly being a homecoming for the enormously successful former Glasgow student too, the mind boggles as to why she wasn’t headlining.

After awkward live link-ups and tedious compere interplay, both before and after the torch display, Doolittle took the stage to a dwindling crowd, but managed to get the front few rows moving to her cheery pop.

However, after the best part of an hour, it started to wane. Let’s hope Hyde Park pulls out the stops.