Concert Review : Ian McNabb - King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow

My last gig of 2009 was to see Ian McNabb play a solo gig at King Tut's in Glasgow. It was an extremely cold evening (and little were we to know just how long that would continue) and this may have had an impact on the attendance which was somewhat less than I had been expecting.

In addition to being one of the best songwriters of the past twenty five years, McNabb is also a superlative singer capable of wringing the last drop of emotion from a tender ballad as well as rockin' out with the best of them. It's something of a (beautiful old) mystery why his career has seemingly levelled out at what I would consider to be well below what he deserves. I do think that his songs are such that many could be covered by the Ronan Keatings of this world, but I do rather suspect that his own versions set the bar rather high for other vocalists.

Having led The Icicle Works through a series of excellent and varied albums to diminishing returns (and perhaps that variety is both where the interest lies for the hardcore fan but also makes it difficult to sustain mainstream success however deserved this might be), he set off on a solo career that looked as if it might hit the jackpot particularly with his second album, Head Like A Rock, being nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Unfortunately for Ian, he seems to have been afforded winners luck for this award, despite not actually winning the damned thing! Nevetheless, his solo work continues to maintain an excellent level with many great songs that it's astonishing haven't found a wider audience.

He has a new album available called Great Things and many of the songs were shown off to great effect in the show. Making use of synths and other programmable devices, it does offer a different musical backdrop to recent albums without detracting from his consistent strengths. The new songs stood up well in solo performance (and I remain an adherent to the argument that if a song can't stand up in a bare acoustic versions that it's not a good song) and were not remotely embarrassed to be performed alongside the many classics from the McNabb back catalogue that we heard tonight.

Ian was a little tentative in the first half and wasn't as communicative as usual. Mind you, I think was very probably because he was absolutely frozen! It didn't take long for the audience to warm up and a starting duo of Fire In My Soul and You Must Be Prepared To Dream has them in good voice.

Ian was much livelier in the second half and was much more his usual ebullient self. He's always been a modest chap which is why one of the tracks on his album is called I Can't Help It If I'm Great which sits nicely in his songbook alongside I'm A Genius!! He is also clearly still in love with music and this comes over very clearly on all the occasions that I've seen him perform.

All in all, this was an excellent evening's entertainment although I do prefer to see Ian fronting a band. However, I suspect the economics of touring make that a less likely prospect these days. He has been in the habit of playing a gig with a band in Liverpool each December so I suspect I should aim to save my pennies for a trip over the border in 2010.