Adam Ant, Glam Skanks - The Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow 21 November 2019

Normally the Royal Concert Hall is an all seated theatre, but tonight the seats in the stalls have been removed and the diehard Adam Ant fans have arrived early to claim prime spots at the front.

Those arriving early were treated to an energetic performance from all female LA glam rockers Glam Skanks, drawing largely from their latest release ‘Anything In Between’ - the first to feature vocalist Vanessa and drummer Jessica. Both impress tonight and are great additions. In Vanessa McNeil they have a great frontwoman who works every inch of the stage. But more importantly, she has the vocal range and bags of power to back it up.

It’s a confident set by the band which ends on ‘The Spirit Of Rock And Roll’, with blue haired guitarist Veronica suitably doing a Chuck/Angus duck walk across the stage during her solo. The band left the stage to warm applause, having clearly won over the Glasgow crowd.

It’s nearly 40 years since I bought ‘Kings Of The Wild Frontier’ then joined the only fan club I’ve ever been in. But by the time I was old enough to start going to gigs, my musical tastes had changed and until tonight, I’d never seen Adam Ant live. And that’s a great pity because I loved tonight’s show.

The current tour sees him playing “hit album Friend Or Foe album in its entirety and other favourites”. I expected ‘other favourites’ to largely be made up from the hit singles - and of course Adam had many of those! But tonight we got two hours of music which not only included some of the pop hits, but focused more on his earlier punk/post punk material and b-sides. And make no mistake, this was very much a rock show, particularly once FOF set was over.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The set opened of course with ‘Friend or Foe’ which featured the trademark tribal drumming that is the basis for so many of Adam Ants best songs. The two drummers work great together, one laying down the beat and the other generally doing the busier tom work. It’s great to watch. And at times during the gig even the guitarists and bass player join in the fun on drums.

Adam may have lost a little bit of his spring (he’s in his 60s remember, although certainly doesn’t look it), however, he’s constantly on the move and playing up to the fans who lapped it up. Other high points of the 12 song FOF set were ‘Desperate But Not Serious’, the rockabilly ’Place In The Country’ (guitar replacing the horns), and ‘Crackpot History’. One or two of the songs towards the end of the album were a bit weaker, but things soon picked up again!

Incredibly this was followed by another 17 songs. ‘Dog Eat Dog’ kicked things off, all drums and scratching guitar. A few songs later Adam tells us things are about to really kick off - cue breakthrough single ‘Antmusic’ which the crowd sing pretty much every word of. Then he straps on a guitar and we get a great hat-trick of early tracks ‘Zerox’, ‘Car Trouble’ and ‘Ants Invasion’.

Things are lightened with ‘Prince Charming’ and ‘Puss ‘n Boots’ before we get a brilliant punk medley of ‘Lady’ straight into ‘Fall-In’ followed a thunderous ‘Kings Of The Wild Frontier’.

‘Stand And Deliver’ becomes a sing-along and ends the main set, but there’s no way the crowd are letting the band away without playing some more. First encore is ‘Press Darlings’, then Adam grabs his guitar again to round off a brilliant night with two gritty, menacing tracks ‘Red Scab’ and ‘Physical (You’re So)’.

The UK tour continues until 12 December. If they’re playing in your area, get along - you won’t be disappointed.