Gig review: Olly Murs, SECC, Glasgow

OLLY Murs is about as safe as pop stars come. Pitched as a teenybop cross between Robbie Williams and Michael Bublé, minus their respective comedy patter and mum appeal, he trades on a regular Essex geezer image.

Olly Murs

SECC, Glasgow

**

And, sure enough, there is nothing special or particularly distinctive about Murs, unless you count his pork pie hat gimmick.

He has a serviceable enough voice, an entirely inoffensive stage presence and a set of tolerable pop material – provided you can actually tolerate ska-flavoured 
candy floss and other thoroughly diluted retro styles, that is.

Over the course of his cheery but cheesy set, there was little to distinguish the upbeat finger-clicking Dance With Me Tonight, watered down pop soul of Personal and plastic doo-wop of I’ve Tried Everything from the work of bygone pastiche merchants such as Darts and Showaddywaddy – Murs’s fans can ask their grandparents – while it’s best just to draw a discreet veil over his no doubt well-intentioned covers of the Clash and the Jam. Where’s an invigorating dubstep bass drop when you need it?

Murs rarely seemed that invested in the songs he was singing, apart from those moments when he was concentrating very hard on playing guitar and piano.

In fairness, he was so busy single-handedly keeping every corner of the crowd on side, including trying to navigate the mobile-phone preferences of a bunch of baying pre-teens, that it was probably too much to ask that he engage emotionally with such thin material too.