Sean Paul/Ashanti, Glasgow review: 'the pace ramped up to a carnival frenzy'

Veteran Jamaican dancehall star Sean Paul may have favoured a long build-up to his show but when he did arrive on stage he wasted no time cranking up the bass and delivering a relentless barrage of thundering reggae with volume, pace and beats a priority over groove. Two unfettered dancers demonstrated how to do it on Shake That Thing with the audience doing their best to keep up.

Sean Paul is the cameo king, with many of his most recognisable hooks coming from appearances on other artists’ records. Beyoncé track Baby Boy, Sia’s Cheap Thrills and Enrique Iglesias’s Bailando were all dispatched early in the set using recorded vocals while his live band delivered the instrumental goods. Reversing the pattern, a virtual Dua Lipa guested on Paul’s own catchy party tune No Lie.

Elsewhere in the set, he mined the Latin influence of his debut single, Deport Them, the hip-hop-flavoured Gimme the Light and a rock-fuelled Like Glue. He’s not a man for ballads but I'm Still In Love With You brought the sweet relief of lovers rock, borrowing heavily from the Alton Ellis original before the pace ramped up again to a carnival frenzy at the end of a set culminating in the bass boom and pumping party credentials of Temperature.

Special guest Ashanti greased the wheels with her opening set. Mindful of the headline attraction, there were some dancehall inflections and associated twerking on Happy and a supremely bassy cover of Dawn Penn's reggae classic You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No).

But this body positive R&B singer is more concerned with the slings and arrows of “situationships” on the crashing melodrama of The Way That I Love You and the frothy soul fluttering of Into You. Like Sean Paul, she is also partial to a guest appearance but the emphasis was more on her own songwriting chops.