Gig review: D:ream, Glasgow

NINETIES dance-pop outfit D:Ream had several hits in their day, but they were all eclipsed by Things Can Only Get Better, which became the official theme tune to Tony Blair's 1997 election campaign before consequently dying a death of maddening ubiquity.

The lack of enthusiasm for the band's reunion was harshly demonstrated by this slightly sad show on an apparently Spinal Tap-esque comeback tour.

Performing in the tiny bar of one of Glasgow's biggest music venues, under a harsh light that gave no member of the four-piece band nor the 30-odd strong crowd any place to hide, nobody came away from this experience much the better for it.

Frontman Peter Cunnah was eager enough to bust some daring middle-aged-dude dance moves, though to the singer's visible annoyance his efforts to chat with the crowd were embarrassingly interrupted every time by the clacking sticks of a drummer evidently in no mood to hang around.

Dreaded new songs loomed large – one titled Drop Beats Not Bombs was Cunnah's belated attempt to distance himself from "the whole Blair thing," while another addressed the incompatibilities of art and science, in a clumsy acknowledgement of the fact that TV boffin Professor Brian Cox once played keyboards in D:Ream (he can be glad he declined the reunion invite).

U R The Best Thing at least had a handful of folks springing around the room daftly, likewise the inevitably cheesy performance at the end of Things Can Only Get Better, a song which has perhaps never rung truer for D:Ream that it did here.