Johnny Marr, Glasgow review - 'an unassuming virtuoso entirely at ease with his considerable legacy'

Johnny Marr is a generous crowd pleaser who knows exactly what we want from one of his live shows – plenty of Smiths, a spritz of Electronic, and just a few token nods towards his solidly unremarkable solo career.

He’s so self-aware, he even introduced one of the newer songs thus: “Don’t be frightened, it’s not s***.” And to be fair, some of his solo material, including the grindingly catchy Easy Money and the knowingly Smiths-esque Hi Hello didn’t cast an ordure pall over this celebratory gathering.

Marr is a great guitarist and a blandly functional singer, although he does at least have a slightly stronger voice than his erstwhile Electronic cohort Bernard Sumner. It’s all relative.

It’s also impossible to argue with a brisk 90-minute set containing eight Smiths songs: Panic; This Charming Man; Bigmouth Strikes Again; Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before; fan fave You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby; a bewitching Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want; There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, and a monumental How Soon is Now?

You (probably) haven’t lived until you’ve witnessed a packed mini amphitheatre triumphantly clapping and singing along to those last two alienation anthems. That incongruity sounds ridiculous, I know, but it was actually rather touching.

Marr doesn’t carry himself with an arrogant swagger, he’s genial and humble, but no one could blame him for secretly thinking to himself, “Yeah, that’s right folks, I wrote all these classics and more.” He deserves the adulation.

A spry 60-year-old with his skinny rock star frame and piebald helmet of hair still intact, Marr looked genuinely happy up there, an unassuming virtuoso entirely at ease with his considerable legacy. Whither Morrissey? Who cares?