Music review: Dexys, Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow - 'Dexys returned to a jukebox approach'

The adored but sporadically spotted Dexys (formerly Dexys Midnight Runners) have been showing off their plumage of late, with an eccentric but exultant new album The Feminine Divine to present. With an initial run of shows “acting” out the album narrative over and done with, Dexys returned to a jukebox approach to their live set, greasing the wheels with pre-show vintage classics over the PA then maintaining the mood with a well intentioned if somewhat karaoke cover of Bee Gees classic To Love Somebody.

This was happily followed by one of their own classics, Tell Me When My Light Turns Green, a supreme slice of their idiosyncratic brand of northern soul with its warming brass blast supplemented by Lucy Morgan’s scurrying strings.

Under clear skies and facing a leafy amphitheatre of acolytes, frontman Kevin Rowland was full of the joys of nature, covering the Hugh Masekela/Friends of Distinction tune Grazing in the Grass with buoyant backing and honeyed supporting vocals.

The good vibes continued with I'm Going to Get Free, a call-and-response bopper, the vaudevillian waltz All In All and Coming Home, with the whole band buying into its freewheeling narrative. Inevitably, these connoisseur cuts were overshadowed by the Brummie soul swagger of Geno, Dexys’ first charttopper, which was paired with another tribute to a soul great, the utterly celebratory Jackie Wilson Said. Unwilling to let this party tune go, the audience took up its wordless chant and Rowland obliged with an a cappella duet.

Lest he be accused of always giving the audience what they want, there was a change of pace and lost momentum as he indulged in the existential debate of Free with Sean Read, before Morgan’s mournful air on fiddle introduced Come On Eileen. A reprise of Jackie Wilson Said was celebrated afresh, before the spirited if single-minded crooning melodrama of This Is What She's Like reminded the audience that this is what Rowland’s like.