Gig review: KD Lang and The Siss Boom Bang

KD LANG & THE SISS BOOM BANGCLYDE AUDITORIUM, GLASGOW****

THERE is always some flirtatious mischief in a kd lang show and with her new musical beaux, the Siss Boom Bang, on her arm, the peerless Canadian crooner gets to play the besotted teenager.But when she sings, it's serious. Not in a way that requires furrowed brows but in the impact of her flawless pitch, tone, technique, interpretation and the sheer swell of emotion she can muster.

She opened with the rapturous I Confess, channelling her heroes Elvis and Orbison through its melodrama. Lang's intoxicating vocal stylings are now accompanied by the slightly meatier backing of this new band, whose simmering soulful arrangements and country rock dynamics livened up the winsome likes of Summer Fling and The Water's Edge.

The set was mainly drawn from current album Sing It Loud, which refines rather than re-routes her tendency towards easy listening material, the summer breeze of the title track, for example, recalling Dionne Warwick's collaborations with Burt Bacharach. Nevertheless, she managed to avoid straying into the middle of the road even when the band became a cheesy listening orchestra for the ever playful Miss Chatelaine.

Her cover versions of Talking Heads' Heaven and Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah might just be lang's way of taking us to church. She took on a technically demanding arrangement of the latter with the ease of a virtuoso, at the same time claiming back the emotional resonance of an overexposed song. But with the serious business of breaking hearts and blowing minds dispensed with, lang chose to party with her boys all gathered round one microphone for the vivacious oldtime bluegrass hoedown of Pay Dirt.