Lulu, Glasgow review: 'some quirky and coy revelations'
This evening of music and memories showed that Lulu still has the pipes aged 76, writes Fiona Shepherd
An Intimate Evening With Lulu, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ★★★
Lulu retired from touring last year with her Champagne for Lulu concerts, but found herself back in her natural stage environment for this evening of music and memories to promote her new memoir If Only You Knew, chaired by journalist and pal Billy Sloan.
The title was instructive: this is a traditional tell-all, or at least tell-more autobiography, in which she opens up particularly about her alcoholism, an illness with a legacy going back generations in her Glasgow family. The other theme of the event was how she has navigated her split personality over the decades, distinguishing between her “happy clappy” Lulu persona and the bolshy survivalist East End kid Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie (always referred to in full).
Proceedings were scripted, not unlike an appearance on a chat show, so the conversation flowed in a somewhat stilted manner and some of the transitions into the songs were a touch awkward, but the end result was always the same: Lulu on her feet, belting beautifully over keyboard accompaniment and demonstrating that she still has the pipes, aged 76.
Sloan guided her chronologically through the years, illustrated with key songs: Where the Poor Boys Dance documenting her chaotic family background, a snippet of Shout for her discovery and early career and the all-time classic To Sir With Love to mark her rise to household name, hammed up somewhat but vocally unimpeachable.
Along the way there were some quirky and coy revelations about her crush on Eric Clapton and brief affair with David Bowie, that she considers her Eurovision Song Contest winner Boom Bang-a-Bang to be a country song and that she followed Elizabeth Taylor as the face of Luxe soap (complete with cute clip). She summed up her own recipe for retaining a youthful aspect: “It's not about getting older, it's about getting bolder”, before taking some pre-submitted questions and bowing out with a short medley including a barnstorming Relight My Fire and reprise of Shout.
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