texas conclude their “very best of texas: world tour” with two special sold-out hometown shows at glasgow’s ovo hydro

★★★★★ (5/5)

TEXAS PERFORMING AT GLASGOW’S OVO HYDRO AS PART OF THEIR “THE VERY BEST OF TEXAS: WORLD TOUR”
PHOTOCREDIT: CALUM BUCHAN

Thirty-five years in the music business, with album and single successes estimated at over 40 million record sales worldwide, Texas were welcomed back to their home ground of Glasgow to enthusiastic cheers. A drop-down curtain lit up in red with the silhouette of a lone guitarist and the sultry twang of blues slide guitar, opened up the set with Texas’ debut single, I Don’t Want A Lover. This iconic song from their Southside album was a bold start to a night full of hits. Lead singer, Sharleen Spiteri, known for her colourful wit, banter and storytelling, quipped “I swear to God it’s just so good to be home”. She has that unique ability to engage with the audience in a more personal way as if conversing with each of them one to one.

Spiteri, donning black sequinned jacket and trousers, with a background of hi-tech screens with superb visuals, launched into Halo, from their album White on Blonde and into the bluesy ballad, Everyday Now. This audience just loved to sing along. Song tracks Conversation and Hi were interspersed with anecdotes such as Spiteri telling of Justin Hawkins of The Darkness being able to kick a guitar pic and catch it and the resultant challenge between Spiteri and Tony McGovern, guitarist, to copy the trick on stage and keep score from gig to gig. In Our Lifetime followed to rapturous applause, a song that was not only a hit single, but also was included on the soundtrack of the 1999 romantic comedy, Notting Hill.

The multi-talented Spiteri, not only known for playing her customary green Gretsch guitar, is an accomplished pianist and took to the keyboard for a cover of Al Green’s Tired of Being Alone, very much reminiscent of their early blues rock influences. The hits kept coming with Keep On Talking, Insane and Let’s Work It Out with those welcomed touches of humour from Spiteri, as she quirked “If you want to hear a Texas record, this is not the place to be. You want to come to a concert for a laugh, don’t you?”

Sharleen Spiteri’s vocals sound every bit as strong as when she started her music career, but she recalled there being a time when her voice just stopped in the middle of singing Put Your Arms Around Me. She was not able to speak for 3 months and had to overcome the fear of singing this song again, which she did so beautifully while playing acoustic guitar. Sleep, originally a duet between Spiteri and Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile, followed, but now sung wonderfully with Tony McGovern and you would be forgiven for thinking, at first, that Texas had started playing Donna Summer’s music when hearing Haze, but there is a sample of Donna’s 1977 hit Love’s Unkind on this track.

As we headed towards the encore, the tempo rose again with the modern soul sound of Black Eyed Boy and the iconic Say What You Want, both real crowd pleasers. As much as Spiteri tried to say they had reached the last song, she told the crowd they would be back. The inevitable encore led to the band leaving the stage only to come back with Sharleen dressed in an Elvis leather ’68 Comeback Special suit designed by Tom Ford, only the same suit that she wore in 2001 in the video of Inner Smile as an homage to Elvis Presley. It was the perfect attire to end the evening with Inner Smile, one of their biggest hits, but this Glasgow audience was made even happier to leave singing Elvis’ hit Suspicious Minds.

Following the conclusion of their “The Very Best Of Texas: World Tour”, Texas will treat Scottish fans to another performance in Scotland later this year. The band have just been announced to headline this year’s Concert In The Gardens as part of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Celebrations for 2024/2025. - More details can be found on Edinburgh Hogmanay’s website here: