Gig review: James Morrison

Published on Friday 4 December 2009 22:10

SECC, GLASGOW **

WHAT has happened to James Morrison and, by extension, the world? It seems like only a matter of months ago he was clearing maybe 1,000 fans per venue, a not unrespectable amount for a decent commercial singer-songwriter with a cod soul way about him. Yet now here he is, selling superstar amounts of tickets in a packed-out SECC.

"It's been a crazy ride from King Tut's to here," he told the audience, almost as if he can't quite fathom it himself. The young women in the crowd bayed lasciviously back, and everyone else clapped politely. Maybe that tells its own story.

Morrison's recent cover of Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror certainly seems to have boosted his popularity, and his encore-commencing solo version of it – preceded by a moonwalk that was game but lame – earned some of the evening's biggest cheers. In truth, he isn't a man to shy away from a soul cover version. Facsimile arrangements of Sam & Dave's Hold On, I'm Coming and Stevie Wonder's Uptight (Everything's Alright) were mashed together near the end of the set, and were instant crowd-pleasers but poor relations to the originals.

Far more pleasing was a blues-tinged snippet of Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years, and indeed Morrison's style – dark jeans, black waistcoat, white shirt open at the neck to accommodate a pendant – is more in line with Simon's staid look than classic Motown cool. Yet quickly he was off into his own Precious Love, a greatly inferior song. On an unfussy, curtain-backed set, Morrison stamped around with his acoustic guitar in hand before eight musicians and two lively, sweet-voiced backing singers.

It felt like he and his band were poised to deliver something special, but merely decent covers and limp ballads like You Give Me Something, Wonderful World and Nothing Ever Hurt Like You didn't fall near that category.