In Pictures: Robbie Williams entertains Glasgow Barrowland crowd wearing Primal Scream t-shirt

The crowd had been gathering since 2am outside the fabled Barrowland Ballroom, waiting for their chance to get close to the stage for a night of pageantry and nostalgia as Robbie Williams rewrote the story of his 1990s emergence from pop stardom with Take That to become a powerful force in UK music as a solo artist. The last time Robbie Williams played this venue was October 1997, a month after his first album, Life Thru A Lens had been released.

His first single, Old Before I Die, had mixed reviews. Follow ups Lazy Days then South of the Border, failed to make an impression. Then came the release of soaring ballad Angels, followed by the bombastic Let Me Entertain You. Robbie Williams had achieved lift off.

His Long 90s Tour returns to that first album, and the smaller venues Robbie began his musical ascent, running through what has became an enduring, if uneven, classic pop record. It is partnered with latest album, Britpop which is the record Williams says he wanted to make at the start. In doing so he embraces the indie aspirations that he never quite managed to achieve in that era, while he was busy becoming a superstar, the UK’s most successful solo artist who has had more number one albums than The Beatles.

I first saw Robbie Williams perform in February 1999, when he returned to Glasgow for a gig at the SECC. Writing with Guy Chambers he had become a hit machine, striving to prove a point, roaring his way through each track, filling every gap with an insistent monologue, always looking for a gag, the centre of attention.

Last night in Glasgow, as he sets out on this new tour, he’s a more relaxed but no less insistent performer. More comfortable in his own skin, able to assume and discard the caricatures he created over last thirty years. A compelling presence on stage. Taking on the start of his career and now going in a direction that suits him, he still knows where the hits are and how to entertain an audience.