Hugh 'Shuggie' Jackman: The Man. The Music. The Show. World Tour. Glasgow Hydro Tues 7th May 2019. Opening night.

Life is richer with stories, like the one where a Hollywood star wants £35 for a programme, or the support act is a Clyde One DJ whose theme song should be Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls from my viewing position if I was allowed to suggest such a thing in today's modern society.

I was a little apprehensive if Wolverine would be able to entertain me with a microphone, some show tunes, an orchestra and some dancers.

I needn't have worried. He was bloody brilliant! (Actually, no blood - this wasn't Logan - but there was a little sweat).

The Glasgow audience had already taken him to their heart with his trips around the West of Scotland meeting the people and sampling the local delicacies, such as a pizza crunch and deep fried Mars Bar. He is a star but he's also down to earth and a decent bloke and this showed in his warmth.

He's also a gifted storyteller, with a great voice, bags of charisma, a wonderful self of humour and a talent to perform. And, at 50 years of age, he is in great shape, still capable of pulling a Wolverine body rage. (Kind of makes me think, where did I go wrong? Never mind. "This is me".)

The interactions with the audience were delightful, especially when he danced with Mary, who didn't want to let him go. We were treated to a solo song from one of his backing singers (Queen's "Somebody to Love") as she's from Glasgow fulfilling a dream she shared with her dad (who was in the audience) to sing solo at the Hydro.

There were surprises and spectacle and even a tap dance to ACDC. The night was special and unique, a story for the audience to tell their friends about how great it was. If you've got tickets for one of the other nights, you are in for a treat.

Set List:

Set 1
The Greatest Show (Pasek and Paul cover)
Come Alive (Pasek and Paul cover)
Gaston (Alan Menken cover)
The Way You Look Tonight (Jerome Kern cover)
I've Been Everywhere (Geoff Mack cover)
You Will Be Found (Pasek and Paul cover)
Somebody to Love (Queen cover) (Performed by Jenna-Lee James )
Soliloquy (Rodgers & Hammerstein cover)
This Is Me (Pasek and Paul cover) (Performed by Keala Settle)
Valjean's Soliloquy / I Dreamed a Dream / One Day More

Set 2
Not the Boy Next Door (Peter Allen cover)
Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) / Don't Cry Out Loud / I Honestly Love You / Quiet Please, There's a Lady on Stage / I Go to Rio (Peter Allen cover)
Tenterfield Saddler (Peter Allen cover)
A Million Dreams(Pasek and Paul cover)
Luck Be a Lady / Singin' in the Rain / I Got Rhythm / Steppin' Out With My Baby / Sing Sing Sing
Tap Dance & Drums Medley: 42nd Street / Thunderstruck / September / Takin' Care of Business / Jump
Nomad Two Worlds - Art Song
Nomad Two Worlds - Inhibition
Over the Rainbow (Harold Arlen cover)
Die Moritat von Mackie Messer (Mack the Knife) (Kurt Weill cover)
From Now On (Pasek and Paul cover) (with Keala Settle)
Once Before I Go (Peter Allen cover)

Take That, 'Greatest Hits Live 2019', SSE Hydro, Glasgow. Sat 20th April 2019.

Before I get onto the main act, I'll start with the support. Dressed in Converse trainers and a sharp suit, hair quiffed tall, I could be describing the Tenth Doctor but this was Rick Astley, the Eighties legend, who made a comeback a few years ago with a couple of strong albums and singles. He's comfortable on the big stage, has a strong voice and a memorable back catalogue. He did himself proud for the time he had (just under an hour). The worst I could say was the font of his logo is dull and his backing singers looked like they were dressed by the costume designer from seventies Top of the Pops.

This was Take That's Greatest Hits Tour, celebrating thirty years in the business. The audience was predominantly female, over forty and well up for a party. They lasted well which speaks wonders to the benefits of HRT. I'm kidding. This was Glasgow. It was alcohol that fuelled them tonight.

Gary, Howard and Mark gave us two hours without a break trawling through their best tunes, reworking a few to better suit them as a threesome, bringing along the usual dancers, updating the costumes and adding a few gimmicks, like a trio of stationary motorbikes that steered from side to side. Not that exciting really.

The stage was dominated by a sphere that doubled as a performance area and a screen (and an occasional Pac Man lookalike, but there were no power pellets so the band were safe - shame because I would have enjoyed it if the band turned ultraviolet and were chased around to the classic 'wagga wagga' tune).

The concert was good but I felt it wasn't their best. Gary's energy seemed off at the start, his voice growing stronger as the show went on. Howard was better than usual, more confident in leading a couple of songs, the best of the three when it came to the dance moves. Mark had an odd moustache, the kind only a mother could love and even then would still want him to shave it off because it makes him look stupid. Bits of the show looked cheap, with dodgy fizz fireworks and low-level grill flames. When Lulu joined them on Relight My Fire, she wasn't the atomic bomb she usually is. Her voice was lost in the sound mix. She still has a great presence on stage though.

I think the problem was the band have set the bar for their stage productions so high I expected better. This show not only didn't quite match their previous efforts it felt short of what other performers are doing: Kiss's lights and pyro drama, Kylie's screen vistas and choreography, McCartney's musicality are all better. If they want to last another ten years, they'll need to lift their game again.

So, overall, a good show but not a great show.

Setlist

Greatest Day
It Only Takes a Minute (Tavares cover)
These Days
Could It Be Magic (Barry Manilow cover)
Everything Changes
Out of Our Heads
A Million Love Songs
Sure
Love Ain't Here Anymore
Spin

Cry (Sigma cover)
Said It All
How Deep Is Your Love? (Bee Gees cover)

Patience
The Flood
Back for Good
Get Ready for It
Everlasting
Giants
Shine
Never Forget
Relight My Fire (Dan Hartman cover) (with Lulu)
Babe
Pray
Rule the World

Marc Maron, 'A Few Parts Of The World Tour', Vicar St, Dublin. Thurs 11th April 2019

So I did this thing where I went to Ireland to see a comedian. I didn't laugh out loud but my shoulders jiggled a couple of times. For me that's a win. He was very funny in a curmudgeonly way. If you haven't heard of him, WTF, he knows and doesn't care. We're all going to die eventually anyway so what does it matter in the grand scheme.

Vicar St in Dublin is an odd venue (it's actually on Thomas Street for one thing). The seating plan has these tiny round tables with four satellite stools attached to each one. They are all crammed into the floor space leaving hardly any room between them unless you're as small as a leprechaun (yeah, I went there, I'm not proud). The sell out crowd are all perched on these toadstools getting backache (asking for a friend, how much do leprechauns pay their chiropractors?), unless you were lucky enough to be sitting at the side or in the balcony. On the stage, Marc is on a stool too, although his is taller, because he's American and he's more important (not really, he just likes to sit while he works).

He's got his shtick to go through and it's a process. He has material prepared but is professional enough to go off topic and bring us back. He's been doing it for thirty-five years after all. He's got a grouchy moustache and floppy hair, now greying, and he has his problems but he's working on them. He reckons he's 85% woke. He's just got to push back his vagina brain back a few levels and he'll be fine. His final bit about US veep Mike Pence at the end of the world ties up a lot of the night's themes and I'm pleased us need geeks will finally inherit the Earth, even if it is fucked. He also makes a valid point about all those fundamental Christians in positions of power accelerating the Apocalypse just so they can meet Jesus on his return. Now it all makes sense.

Good show. Boomer lives!

Glengarry Glen Ross - Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Mon 8th Apr 2019.

The poster says it's an extraordinary experience. Based on tonight's performances, the adjective is prefixed by five letters too many.

Mark Benton is fine in the Jack Lemmon role, but the others mostly don't measure up to the script. Nigel Harman certainly ain't no Pacino. His big angry scene, bringing out the big C word, evoked as many titters as gasps from the audience when it should have felt like a gut punch. Maybe his unconvincing New York drawl weakened its impact. Maybe he just wasn't up to the role.

I know it's unfair to compare the film to the play but I'd rather dig out my Bluray than have to sit through this middling pish again.

My compliments to the set designer.

(On reflection, the set wasn't that special either).

Bill Burr, '50', SEC Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow. Thurs 28th Feb 2019

You know you've picked the wrong event for a date night when the support act's final bit ends with him describing peeling off the rubbed-in, dried, hangover-wank cum from his belly. That's what I call a SPOILER. (Sorry if you plan to see scouse comedian Adam Rowe, who supported Bill Burr at the Armadillo last night).

I wasn't overly familiar with Bill's act. I knew his material wasn't as "challenging" as, say, Doug Stanhope's, but figured if my wife could laugh at Jim Jefferies she might be okay with Bill Burr.

Big mistake.

Even I didn't enjoy the night. This wasn't because Bill was bad. He wasn't. He was incisive in nailing a punchline, showed great craft in his callbacks and performed his routines expertly. I just didn't laugh much (by that I mean big belly laughs that catch you unaware and shake your insides). I felt more browbeaten than amused. The universal stuff was good and he mined a few home truths to good effect (a husband always being a work in progress; the thoughtlessness of car makers of yesteryear for only including an airbag for the driver as his family is wrecked around him, for example) but he also did a lot of America-centric material which didn't find my funny bone and at times challenged my patience.

Bill's comedy is borne from anger so does little to relax his audience. His thick Bostonian accent grates, he speaks fast and he curses like his mom couldn't find the soap to wash out his mouth. He doesn't make any apologies for who he is (nor should he) but I found it all a bit much. That was down to me.

The event info suggested he would do an hour, finishing at 9.30pm; he played an hour and a half, finishing at 10.15pm. My day had already been stressful right up to the point of arriving at my seat so it felt like I'd never relaxed the entire time and Bill didn't help this. I left the venue just as stressed as when I arrived. Not what I expect from a comedy night. My wife also didn't laugh so I felt an impending sense of 'oh dear, my brownie point share price has just crashed and burned'. Not conducive to being entertained.

Although we didn't laugh much, the audience loved him, giving him a standing ovation. This surprised me. I didn't think they'd be able to stand given the amount of alcohol I'd seen being brought in prior to the show, being carried deftly in those cardboard, wedgy trays (they knew the bar was closed during the performance). I think to appreciate Bill properly you need to have had a few beforehand to get you into his loud-mouth, barroom mindset. A lesson learned.

Blue Rose Code, Alexander Wilson Suite, Paisley Town Hall. Fri 21st Dec 2018

While a few of my friends nipped along to the Barrowland to sample some old school Big Country and The Skids, I instead plumped for something quieter at Paisley Town Hall. I was a bit surprised to get parked so easily close to the venue until I discovered the gig wasn't in the main hall but instead upstairs in one of the smaller rooms.

It wasn't the kind of gig to take pictures so I'll do my best to describe it.

The ambience in the Alexander Wilson Suite was cosy but refined. Seats in rows of six on either side of the long room provided a capacity for around two hundred people. Most were taken up by a mainly mature audience with only a few empty ones near the back. The cold night was kept at bay by grilled radiators inset in the walls distributing warm air to the room. Dangling from the ornate ceiling, massive brass chandeliers conjured an image of mutant-legged spiders holding up dim, electric candles, some of which weren't lit, casting a soft glow on the audience below. Two spotlights, one on either side of the slightly raised stage, were accompanied by a couple of coloured uplighters, providing a pink tinge on the back wall and, as the musicians moved forward or back, creating bluey shadows, which stretched and shrank behind them.

Guitarist Lyle Watt was tonight's support act playing around twenty minutes of his instrumental compositions. He's a highly talented plucker, good enough for me to pop to the merch table to purchase his CD EP.

When it was time for Ross Wilson, aka Blue Rose Code, to take the stage he kept it simple, with just him and two band members on stage, the aforementioned Lyle on guitar and someone called Andy on keyboards. All three were bearded and in jumpers, Ross wearing a ribbed brown affair with a round neckline. Ross's hair was short and shaved, the others long but tied back.

Ross played acoustic guitar too and the sound generated by the band was beautiful and clear. The musicianship from all three was exquisite and tight and my only complaint would be that some of Ross' chat between songs was too conversational and a bit unclear at times. Talk into the mike, mate.

Unusually for a Paisley crowd on a Friday night, the audience was respectful and quiet, with only a few making excuses to visit the bar or toilet. At the end, the band got a standing ovation.

For those of you not versed in BRC's music, I would describe it as music to encapsulate the spirit of waking from a cosy night's sleep on a sunny Sunday morning with a view outside of a Scottish beach, the Atlantic waves gently lap against the shore. In the press, it's been described as 'Caledonia Soul'. It's certainly more than just folk music.

Even if I didn't end up rocking 'Into the Valley' tonight 'In a Big Country', I got to enjoy a cultured evening of beautiful, lyrical Scottish music. Cheers, Ross.

(He was much better tonight than the last time I saw him, at Saint Lukes).

Paul McCartney, 'Freshen Up' Tour, SSE Hydro Glasgow. Fri 14th Dec 2018

Icon.

Legend.

Amazing gig.

When you're Paul McCartney, you can get the most talented musicians to play in your band. They need to be the best to match your ability. Tick.

When you're Paul McCartney, you can get Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp to perform sign language to the lyrics of one of your songs (on video). Tick.

When you're Paul McCartney, you can get a room full of proper stars to dance on video to another one of your songs. Tick.

When you're Paul McCartney, your Japanese fans will fly all the way to Glasgow to see you perform (and sit in the best seats). Saiko.Tick.

Because you're Paul McCartney, you can play the bass, the piano, the electric guitar, the acoustic guitar, the mandolin and the lute and play them brilliantly for nearly three hours without even needing to sip a bottled water. At seventy-six, you've been doing it so long, you know how it's done. And you can remember your lyrics without needing a crib sheet. Tick.

When you're Paul McCartney, you can surprise the shit out of the audience with a loud explosion with fire, smoke and pyros during "Live and Let Die". Boom.

I loved this gig.

The audience was multigenerational, from eight to eighty, and everyone enjoyed it. We felt included. The whole of the downstairs stood and danced for the entire show, a lot of them bringing signs they'd made for Paul to read out. He played forty songs and hardly broke a sweat.

On a personal level, It was fun to see the Paisley Grammar School choir accompanying him on "Wonderful Christmastime".

I wouldn't have called myself a Macca fan before tonight but this gig made my top 3 for 2018, pushing Steve Martin down to four (the others being Billy Joel at MSG and Queen at Glasgow Green).

Age is no barrier when you're Paul McCartney.

Setlist

A Hard Day's Night (The Beatles song)
Junior's Farm (Wings song)
Can't Buy Me Love (The Beatles song)
Letting Go (Wings song)
Who Cares
Got to Get You Into My Life (The Beatles song)
Come On to Me
Let Me Roll It (Wings song) (followed by "Foxy Lady" jam)
I've Got a Feeling (The Beatles song)
Let 'Em In (Wings song)
My Valentine
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five (Wings song)
Maybe I'm Amazed
We Can Work It Out (The Beatles song)
In Spite of All the Danger (The Quarrymen song)
From Me to You (The Beatles song)
Dance Tonight
Love Me Do (The Beatles song)
Blackbird (The Beatles song)
Here Today
Queenie Eye
Lady Madonna (The Beatles song)
Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles song)
Fuh You
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! (The Beatles song)
Something (The Beatles song)
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (The Beatles song)
Band on the Run (Wings song)
Back in the U.S.S.R. (The Beatles song)
Let It Be (The Beatles song)
Live and Let Die (Wings song)
Hey Jude (The Beatles song)

Encore:

Birthday (The Beatles song)
Wonderful Christmastime (with Paisley Grammar School Choir)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (The Beatles song)
Helter Skelter (The Beatles song)
Golden Slumbers (The Beatles song)
Carry That Weight (The Beatles song)
The End (The Beatles song)