Gig review:Leann Rimes, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

AFTER years of drifting in the bland but lucrative pop-country market, Leann Rimes has gradually found her way back to richer roots with her last few albums.

Leann Rimes: reduced capacity. Picture: Getty

Although she is still only in her early 30s, she has almost 20 years of material to draw on, and this somewhat truncated set reflected both sides of her catalogue.

Rimes, hospitalised less than a week ago with throat problems, was in sufficiently fine voice, though not firing on a full tank as she delivered a non-swinging rendition of Swingin’. The band, modestly arranged around her in a tight semi-circle, also appeared to be holding back out of sensitivity to her reduced capacity.

Nevertheless, she impressed with her controlled take on the inoffensive ballad Probably Wouldn’t Be This Way and her songwriting chops on new number Borrowed, which takes a tender approach to the classic country theme of adultery and serves as a credible bid to claim her private life back from the tabloids.

Her Patsy Cline-influenced debut hit Blue was delivered with a fluent country cry in her voice.

In contrast, her most popular numbers Can’t Fight The Moonlight and How Do I Live are also among her most generic efforts and were dispensed like the obligation they are, with only a fraction of the emotion which she invested in her straight cover of Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me or the dynamism she brought to an acoustic encore rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

Rating: * * *