Gig review: James McCartney

Published on Thursday 18 March 2010 18:04

JAMES MCCARTNEY ** KING TUT'S, GLASGOW

PERFORMING a song called I Love You Dad is a risky, potentially cheesy move for anyone, but probably more so when the world knows your dad is Sir Paul McCartney, the man who helped write the blueprint for almost any guy with a guitar. Indeed, performing at all when your dad is fab Macca is a risky move of which McCartney the younger is only too conscious.

Until now he has remained firmly in the background, contributing to a couple of his dad's albums and performing live only a handful of times under the pseudonym Light. But you might as well appeal to the public's natural curiosity so now, as he readies his debut album, he is stepping out on his first ever tour. Sadly his inexperience showed. He has impossibly big shoes to fill but, even so, there were moments when this performance (with a three-piece band) was no better (sometimes worse) than a local pub gig. McCartney is an uncomfortable performer with a limited repertoire of stage patter.

Worse, his voice was going and, instead of reining back, McCartney kept pushing, with painfully out-of-tune results, struggling through a cover of Neil Young's Old Man as well as his own mixed repertoire on guitar and piano. There was a scrappy, punky rawness to his guitar-led numbers, which layered muscular bass and Joe Meek-style keyboards on to a rock'n'roll foundation, but it was difficult to get a handle on his style under such trying circumstances.