Gig review: Neil Sedaka; Glasgow Clyde Auditorium

A HUMBLE and unlikely pop superstar, at 73 Neil Sedaka comes across more like a retired insurance salesman than one of the most successful songwriters of all time.

But maybe that explains why his career has weathered changing trends over the years, and why this one-man-a-grand-piano feel-good show proved unexpectedly entertaining – assuming you didn’t find anything weird about a septuagenarian singing songs about taking young girls to junior proms (see Calendar Girl).

The Brooklyner – who cut his teeth at New York’s Brill Building back in the late 1950s – has seen his fair share of downs as well as ups. Sedaka had sold 40 million records by 1963, “but then came The Beatles,” he explained, with a philosophical smile. “Not good.” The British Invasion and all that entailed saw him quickly forgotten, until his Elton John-aided resurgence as a more adult-orientated crooner after 1975.

His indefatigably perky early 60s repertoire inspired mass singalongs to Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen, Oh! Carol and Stairway to Heaven, each of which had grans and grandads going about as crazy as they’re inclined to go.

Some new stuff from current LP The Real Neil was followed by 70s big-sellers including Laughter In The Rain and Love Will Keep Us Together. The footage from the original Calendar Girl promo – the world’s first ever music video, “before Lady Gaga,” Sedaka quipped – was exquisitely cheesy, likewise the mass clap-along to Is This The Way To Amarillo?

The voice might have quivered some, the odd key may have been slipped, but Sedaka showed loveable class to the last, signing-off after three encores with the hands-by-cheek universal sign for “bedtime”.

Rating: * * * *