Gig review: Maroon 5, Glasgow Hydro

LA soft funk rockers Maroon 5 have enjoyed a new lease of life since digging out their dancing shoes for the uncharacteristic smash hit Moves Like Jagger, elevating them to arena touring level and frontman Adam Levine be a judge on the US version of The Voice.

Maroon 5 played a set of generic radio pop rock at the Hydro. Picture: Robert Perry

Maroon 5 - Glasgow Hydro

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Every little helps in countering the journeymen impression conveyed by much of their seamlessly and swiftly dispatched set of generic radio pop rock, designed for minimum interference in the daily grind, with a reggae inflection here (One More Night), an insidious hookline there (This Love).

Tangled and Harder To Breathe tasted like low-calorie renditions of a sound already streamlined by Red Hot Chili Peppers. They also made an unconvincing stab at sub-Muse industrial rock quake. “You guys are so polite,” noted Levine in the face of audience bewilderment.

While the rest of the band might as well have been session players for all the personality exhibited, Levine was a practised professional with the poses and the anecdotes. Remember that time when he wore a kilt backwards? Hilarious… His tenor, meanwhile, was true but hardly distinctive when flexed on the 70s soul-flavoured Sunday Morning and essentially non-funky covers of Prince’s I Wanna Be Your Lover and the ubiquitous Get Lucky.

Despite a late injection of pop uplift with the sweet Stereo Hearts and the supremely infectious Moves Like Jagger, there was little evidence here of that mutual energy exchange between band and fans. At least Lucky Strike spoke to a new, improved Maroon 5, the playful and slightly camp incarnation of the group which all too briefly brought the party to an otherwise flat performance.