Saturday, 27 July 2019

Burt Bacharach at Kelvingrove Bandstand

Towards the end of Burt Bacharach’s set last night the lights dimmed on his band to leave Burt playing piano alone, singing Alfie, his voice, aged, cracked, soulful ... beautiful. You could have heard a pin drop, it was very moving.

The 91- year old genius had captivated a sold out Bandstand from the off by walking on stage and shaking the hands of the 3 photographers at the front. He stood in front of his piano and charmed every single person in the audience with wisecracks about getting his good side, stories about his songwriting, hits, shoulda been hits, artists he worked with and on a number of occasions he discussed politics. It was clear that Burt was hurting from the fact Trump is president of his country.


In between intro’s and stories, Bacharach had a wonderful band to play with and conduct for over 2-hours. There were medleys, that if honest perhaps skipped through some of his biggest songs a little too quickly. There were spine tingling moments a plenty. Burt’s 3 vocalists sang beautifully together or when they each took turns on lead.

Highlights for me were a beautiful opening What The World Needs Now, then This Guy’s In Love With You, Walk On By, Baby It’s You, My Little Red Book - Burt was impressed by how many people cheered for Love, The Look Of Love, the aforementioned Solo section, Making Love and the closing Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head. It was all magical.

And oh how Glasgow shined as once again the audience wowed a superstar and his band. Towards the end people were standing, dancing and singing at the front and it was so beautiful to see and hear that the band brought their phones out to capture some of the magic in the air.

Bacharach and his band received a mighty ovation. A show that will live


long in the memory.


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