Gig review: Tom Tom Club

TOM Tom Club have convened sporadically over the years as a party side-project for Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, the redoubtable husband-and-wife rhythm section of Talking Heads, and are celebrating their 30th anniversary with a burst of activity, including a new live album and a brace of bouncy shows.

Greeting Glasgow like an old friend, their idiosyncratic mix of skinny funk, electro pop, hip-hop scratching, plus reggae and Afrobeat infusions sounded as fresh and lean as ever.

Frantz and Weymouth were enthusiastic and energised hosts from the off, although it was Bruce Martin who appeared to be having the most fun on whooshing 1980s keyboards and occasional percussive outbreaks, inserting a burst of Auld Lang Syne into Punk Lolita, a track they dedicated to their chum Debbie Harry.

They have their own blonde fox frontwoman in the person of Victoria Clamp, who launched a cutesy but deadly twin vocal charm offensive with Weymouth, the latter putting those years as a high school cheerleader to good use on the rhythmical delivery of their jaunty anti-war song L'Elephant, the supple chant of Wordy Rappinghood and girly rapture of Genius Of Love, truly a song for the summer, if it ever arrives.

The ageless set was rounded out with covers – their quirky electro funk treatment of Under The Boardwalk, a witty, unexpected version of Hot Chocolate's You Sexy Thing – and an encore treat of Talking Heads numbers, crowned with the evergreen itch of Psycho Killer.