Gig review: Goldfrapp

Alison Goldfrapp has moved on from electrodisco to folk. Picture: Kenny Smith

The worry about changing the pace of a music career is whether or not your fans are going to make the switch with you.

Goldfrapp - Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow

****

For Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory, the drastic reinvention undertaken on last year’s sixth album Tales of Us wasn’t designed to test their fans, yet many who grew to love the group based on Goldfrapp’s hyper-stylish queen of the electro-disco persona might have been nonplussed by her re-emergence as a breathy folk siren.

If so, this minority will have been tested by the early part of this show, which featured tracks exclusively taken from the record. Songs such as Drew and Thea are utterly lovely, making a feature of Goldfrapp’s confident but ethereal vocal, although the sense was that some fans might have been waiting politely before the bass kicked in and the party started. Yet to those with patience and the belief that the duo and their band would make efforts to take everyone with them, the opening segment would have been part of a wholly satisfying show which demonstrated the breadth and richness of Goldfrapp and Gregory’s muse.

Of course, as the night bore on the party picked up pace, and towards the end we were treated to the more strident electro-pop sounds of Number 1 and Ride a White Horse, as Goldfrapp’s black wing-like tasselled cape created a striking silhouette framed in the diagonal slash of spotlights behind her.

The clubby grinds of Train closed the main set and Strict Machine finished the show, although the encore inclusion of the dreamlike Utopia and Lovely Head from their first album Felt Mountain reminded the audience that there’s always been a quiet side to this group.

Seen on 04.04.14