Gig review: Tinchy Stryder

Published on Wednesday 23 September 2009 18:57

TINCHY STRYDER *** THE GARAGE, GLASGOW

IF TINCHY Stryder has been feeling any lingering guilt about his part in the Sugababes' latest line-up implosion, with tabloid reports suggesting his collaboration with Amelle Berrabah, Never Leave You, hastened the departure of Keisha Buchanan from the girl band, it was concealed by the bullish swagger with which he roamed the stage here.

The pint-sized MC emerged before his name in giant, blinding lights, exuding the kind of charisma that can justify turning the hurling of one of his Star in the Hood T-shirts into the crowd into a five-minute pantomime to ascertain who's demanded it loudest.

Initially at least, there was an irrepressibility to the big, flashy choruses of Stryder's grime-pop and virtually ubiquitous samples of 1990s dance tracks. Yet there was no hiding the fact that all the music was coming from backing tracks and over the course of an hour, this automated process, and his calculatedly choreographed, Pavlovian incitement for the crowd to "make some noise", became truly wearing. Couldn't he at least have splashed out for a touring vocalist?

The infectious, four-on-the-floor disco beat of Warning was too quickly subsumed by the affected bragging of the lyrics. And only the brief reappearance of support act Chipmunk and singles Number 1 and Take Me Back afforded any real novelty, with Stryder's frequently insipid verses often appearing to run into one another, an occasional inspired NWA riff notwithstanding.

Still, the teenage audience here loved it, so I doubt he's overly concerned about the amount of filler in his setlist.