Gig review: The Saturdays - Glasgow SECC

EVEN as fresh-faced five-piece The Saturdays play their first ever arena tour, they appear on the verge of being supplanted as the nation’s Girls Aloud clones of choice following the success of X-Factor winners Little Mix.

Still, at least they have a new USP – member Una Healy is six months pregnant and gamely performed right the way through this set, albeit taking one song off for a cup of tea and a biscuit. “The baby made me do it,” she insisted. Even by the standards of a prefabricated pop outfit, the Saturdays are a proposition aimed squarely at the many thousands of kids in their audience. No contemporary girl group is complete without a bit of brashly overt sexualisation, and the girls’ skimpy hooded cheerleader outfits during Faster were matched only by their male dancers’ appearance in sequined gladiator costumes for Up or as topless Santas during a pleasant seasonal encore of Winter Wonderland.

This was a show memorable for its slick, widescreen professionalism and for an almost total lack of personality. Set-pieces abounded, from the on-screen backing of Travie McCoy during The Way You Watch Me to the dancers’ YMCA tribute during an impossibly camp cover of Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough. But while they have some truly dreadful songs – garish ballad Issues stood out for the wrong reasons – there were also some surprisingly pleasing hi-NRG disco-house tracks, like a mash-up of their own If This is Love and Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger. Great fun if you like your thrills cheap and disposable.

Rating: ***