The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Takes to the stage
Perth Concert Hall, April 19; Caird Hall, Dundee, April 20
If Gary Barlow is to be believed, the reason he’s playing Dundee next week is because his surprise appearance at superfan Jill Campbell’s 30th birthday party at Discovery Quay in 2016 gave him an indication of how good the crowds in the city are.
That’s what he said at the time, anyway, but it’s hard to see how he could have missed either Dundee or Perth off the list.
One of the hardest workers in showbusiness has decided to downsize for this tour; instead of focusing attention on arenas like Glasgow’s SSE Hydro, he’s playing concert halls and open air venues in what looks like most of the cities in the UK.
In fact, to any casual observers it looks like Barlow is obsessed with getting out on tour.
Not only does he do lengthy international jaunts like this one under his own name, but he still alternates them with Take That tours, even though his original group has been cut down from a five-piece to a trio in recent years.
So where Mark Owen and Howard Donald are at least getting a rest between last year’s Wonderland extravaganza from Take That and 2019’s planned world tour to coincide with their greatest hits album – all three are in their late 40s, remember, with Donald hitting 50 at the end of this month – Gary just keeps on going.
As far as his own solo career goes, he’s positively slacking in that he hasn’t released an album in five years, since 2013’s Since I Saw You Last, although there was a 20th anniversary edition of Open Road last year, the album he used to announce his solo career when Take That first split.
They’ll split again, Barlow has said, when one of the remaining trio decides they want to leave, which seems like the only logical way to do it, because a twoman Take That would surely just be milking it.
In the meantime, expect a more stripped-back affair from his solo set when compared to the full-blown arena sets and effects of Take That, and one which concentrates on Barlow’s abilities as a singer and songwriter more than anything else; remember that he also has a bunch of big hits under his own name, including Open Road, Sing and Let Me Go.
And as usual with anything Barlow does, expect an air of the determinedly hard-working.
“The audition never really stops, people are always judging what you do,” the judge on television’s Let It Shine and formerly the X-Factor told a national newspaper last year.
“It’s even harder when you’ve done well because people think, ‘He’s not as good as he used to be.’ You’re in this constant battle.”