Phil Campbell, Glasgow review: 'unabashed sincerity'

Phil Campbell, Oran Mor, Glasgow ★★★

A rootsy singer-songwriter who sounds remarkably like Joe Cocker performing widescreen piano ballads a la Bruce Springsteen in Thunder Road mode, Glasgow’s Phil Campbell is something of a local cult hero.

Formerly the frontman and chief songwriter for blues rockers The Temperance Movement, he later went on to form the Americana-soaked Byson Family while continuing to pursue a solo career (he’s released eight solo albums so far, the first dating back to 1998).

During this intimate and mostly solo gig, Campbell – who looks like a man-of-the-people cross between Paul Weller and Ringo Starr – performed his 2010 album Saviour’s Song in its entirety, plus a handful of songs from throughout his career.

Highlights included the touching Time Won’t Leave, which was written while his partner was pregnant with their daughter; Vodka Milk, a song dedicated to single parents and one of the few he sings in his own accent; Boom Town Rats, an empathetic ode to drink and drug addicts (Campbell wryly apologised to Bob Geldof for stealing his band’s name); and Wrecking Ball Nights, an undeniably bold mash-up of John Lennon’s Come Together/Chuck Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me and Muppets classic Mah Nah Mah Nah (this is not a bad thing).

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Most affecting of all, though, was Halloween, a song dedicated to an extended family member who sadly passed away two years ago.

Campbell performed this tender tribute on acoustic guitar while accompanied on piano by his late friend’s son. Who could fail to be moved by that?

While it’s true that some of Campbell’s material tends towards the generic - he’s entirely the sum of his canonised musical influences - there’s no denying the leather-lunged power of that raspy voice or the unabashed sincerity of his writing.

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