Lily Allen, Glasgow review: 'doesn't mince her lyrics'
Drawing on her break-up album West End Girl, this Lily Allen live show was as much sung-through theatre piece as gig, writes Fiona Shepherd
Lily Allen, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ★★★★
Fuelled by a perfect storm of heartache, anger, bitterness and revenge, the break-up album is a longstanding indulgence in popular music. Lily Allen has delivered a doozy of a divorce missive in the shape of her latest album, West End Girl, and elected to give it a full theatrical platform in a nod to her West End appearance in 2:22 A Ghost Story - the moment, according to Allen, when the rot in her marriage to actor David Harbour set in, and where the album begins.
As such, this show was as much sung-through theatre piece as gig, with anticipation stoked by a witty opening turn from the Dallas Minor Trio, who performed cello arrangements of some of Allen’s biggest hits with the excited audience singing along to the lyrics, classical karaoke-style.
This was a reminder that for all the sweetness of her tunes and the gauche simplicity of her words, Allen doesn't mince her lyrics. The prescient use of the word “harbour” in F*** You sent a frisson through the capacity crowd and soon enough Allen was onstage, emerging from behind a swish green curtain, dressed in luxe housewife glamour, to sing her story from the first relationship niggles of the bossa nova title track onwards.
The curtain drew back to reveal a shagpile carpeted bedroom set, sparsely furnished but with fully stocked fridge, emblematic of the loneliness of the long-distance wife. Suspicions of infidelity gave way to anger on Tennis and Madeline, with Allen inhabiting her titular American nemesis.
Elsewhere, her vocals were pure and articulate as she quietly unravelled in her isolation. The audience were there to light up their phones in solidarity during Let You W/In, while Just Enough was the most beautifully staged number of the set with Allen as torch singer behind a shimmering curtain, fully deserving of her diva bunch of flowers at the end of opening night.
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