Music review: Giorgio Moroder, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

LEGENDARY record producer Giorgio Moroder is one of a small coterie of trailblazers who can truly claim to have changed popular music – with David Bowie and Brian Eno conceding that the avuncular Italian had beaten them to “the new sound” when his production on Donna Summer’s disco classic I Feel Love virtually invented modern electronic dance music.

Giorgio Moroder walked the tightrope between innovator and good old-fashioned hitmaker. Picture: Jason Kempin/Getty Images

Giorgio Moroder, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ****

Better late than never, the 78-year-old has now embarked on his first live tour, and took to the stage with disarming alacrity accompanied by full live band, including those all-important disco strings, and four vocalists who were game enough to tackle “weird sexy song” Love to Love You Baby, the cowbells and whistles of Bad Girls and free-spirited disco of On the Radio in the knowledge that they could not hope to match the ecstasy of the originals.

The setlist walked a shoogly tightrope between Moroder the innovator and Giorgio the good old-fashioned hitmaker, with a generous provision of 80s AOR cuts from his film soundtracks for Flashdance, Top Gun and The Neverending Story – which achieved the double whammy of being cheesy and schmaltzy.

But there was also room for the glistening Teutonic electro pop of his 1977 hit From Here to Eternity – Kraftwerk under a disco ball – and its Daft Punk counterpart Giorgio By Moroder, plus his Bowie collaboration Cat People and a barnstorming MacArthur Park, both featuring recordings of the original Bowie/Summer vocals, before the company brought the show to a loveable Eurodisco climax with Last Dance, Hot Stuff and Blondie’s Call Me.

FIONA SHEPHERD