Paolo Nutini

23/02/2010

Boy king feels the Love @ King Tut's, Glasgow

King Tut’s, Glasgow
5/5
 
Having just turned 23 last month, he’s barely three years older than this venue. But Paolo Nutini’s increasingly eclectic and breezily confident canon must surely encompass almost as many genres and generations of pop and rock history as old King Tut’s itself.
 
Cheekily intro’ed with Andy Williams crooning ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ and launching unhesitatingly into ‘10/10’, Nutini is crammed on to the stage between a jaunty brass section, rock-god guitars and sassy percussion. He’s relaxed and for once meets the audience eye-to-eye, standing tall from the get-go; none of the old shy shamble as he used to slowly warm up to the crowd.
 
Evidently undaunted by the previous evening’s robbing at the hands of The Brits (Dizzee Rascal inexplicably decreed best male and Florence and the Machine best album, the two categories for which Nutini was nominated), this is a growing musician whose instinctive grasp of pop melody and heartfelt authenticity satisfies both teenybopper and muso alike.
 
Maybe it’s the enforced intimacy of the room, or the overwhelming, familial and very vocal love being pumped stagewards. But there’s a cosy directness to proceedings, the band goofing around on stage and the singer sneaking in an odd reference to fellow Scots Franz Ferdinand quietly chanting “You say/You don’t know…” over the meandering intro to ‘Jenny Don’t Be Hasty’. ‘New Shoes’ has an almost Blondie-esque New York bubblegum-bop to it with a Big Rock Ending, and the crowd go all Fraggle Rock as the brass section blart through ragtime romp ‘Pencil Full of Lead’, which has never sounded more upbeat.

At the other extreme it’s just Nutini and an acoustic guitar for a particularly touching ‘These Streets’, always given especial poignancy on home turf. Somehow he doesn’t quite crack open the heavens in that way that he can as ‘No Other Way’ reaches its soul-wrenching climax, but this impassioned it still makes your heart soar.
 
The cover of Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’ is an unexpected drop-in to the set, and gives the band a chance to wade gamely, if kinda scruffily, through the ebb and flow of Bryan McLean’s dark psychedelic fanfare. Their tribute to reggae great John Holt, playing his ‘Riding For a Fall’, flows much more smoothly.
 
Remarkably for an outfit now used to ginormo-gigs, festivals and the nation’s biggest halls, sound is nigh-perfect, vocals front and centre of a great mix and not a note lost in this dark, sweaty box. Right down to the audience-led closer ‘Last Request’ it’s a genuinely uplifting experience.
 
Never mind King Tut. Tonight, Nutini is the real Boy King.
 
Vicky Davidson