What on earth possessed Justin Bieber to be two hours
late for his own concert? In one fell swoop the 19-year-old singer disappointed
hundreds of young fans, infuriated their parents and set Twitter ablaze with
criticism.
I reckon they should have gone to Amy MacDonald’s
concert at the London Palladium the night before instead. The Glaswegian singer-songwriter
(responsible for one of my all-time favourite tracks, Let’s Start a Band) arrived on time, took the packed audience by
storm and left us all stunned by her talent.
I’d booked tickets months ago but when it came to it,
my husband was on a work trip in Dubai and my daughter was in Paris. So I asked
my 18-year-old son instead and even though he was dubious and his musical
tastes are diametrically opposed to mine he sweetly agreed. His
favourite music is “Trap,” which is apparently a mix of “southern hip-hop and
Crunk” – and no, I’m still none the wiser.
But after a set lasting more than an hour, even my son
agreed that Amy MacDonald and her band gave a storming performance. Now 25, she
is a self-taught musician who started playing in Glasgow pubs ten years ago and
has now sold more than five million albums. Her latest claim to fame came last
week when she appeared on the BBC’s Top
Gear programme. A self-confessed car fanatic who drives a Ferrari, she drove
a Kia hatchback at top speed around a Surrey racetrack and was described by a
clearly impressed Jeremy Clarkson as “one of the biggest petrolheads we’ve ever
had on the show.”
But back to the Palladium. Amy MacDonald, a diminutive
figure in a short black sparkly dress and sky-high boots, gave one of the most
outstanding live performances I’ve ever seen. She’s halfway through a European
tour and whether she was singing acoustic ballads or anthemic rock numbers held the audience in the palm of her hand.
She’s good at the chat too. Along the way we
discovered that she recommended Irn-Bru as a hangover cure, that the
song The Green and the Blue was inspired by her love for Glasgow and that, unlikely as it sounds, she and her band warm
up to Higher and Higher, from the Ghostbusters movie.
The next day she was off home to Glasgow, ahead of a
gig in Edinburgh tonight. If the audience was this rapturous in London, goodness knows
what it will be like up there…
