Photo Credit: Kevin O’Sullivan (20th November – Eventim Apollo, London)
Mrs Rock & Roll Amy Macdonald is back on the road this year after releasing an album Is This What You’ve Been Waiting For? during the summer and the ‘secret set’ at the TRNSMT Festival was one of the highlights of the weekend. This is sold out night number two at the OVO Hydro with 25,000 attending over the two nights.
Manchester’s Bria Keely and her Better Joy band are the support for the UK tour – apart from last night’s show when it was Cammy Barnes. Someone in the Amy Macdonald camp definitely knows a decent band when they hear one, this was our third time seeing Better Joy after their impressive performance at Liverpool’s Sound City earlier in the year as well as a support slot for Somebody’s Child in October. There are already a few thousand in the arena at 7.30pm and Carnival begins the eight track set, Bria soon apologises to the crowd for her vocal quality as she has a cold but it was barely noticeable. The four-piece band electrify the crowd with a stunning half-hour performance working through some foot tapping songs such as Steamroller, What A Day and Waiting On Time. They all seemed to be having great fun on the massive stage and the extended rockier versions of Plugged In and last song of the set Dead Plants had definitely won the band more than a few new fans. Better Joy are back in Glasgow for a headline show at King Tut’s in March and we can’t wait for that one. 8/10
Sweet Caroline gets the crowd worked up for the main act with a mass singalong and it’s not long until Amy Macdonald and band take to the stage kicking the set off with the title track of the latest LP Is This What You’ve Been Waiting For, immediately we can sense that this is going to a great night. The set moves quickly between the six album releases with the next four tracks creating one of the best sections of the set with Dream On, The Hudson and Spark getting the crowd warmed up nicely. It’s not long until the big hitters come out with Mr Rock & Roll receiving a huge response from the capacity crowd as does Don’t Tell Me That It’s Over. The emotional pull of Amy Macdonald’s music is part of the reason she has such a huge fanbase, not just in the UK either, the Germany and Switzerland shows are always hugely popular. Before the track Run, the singer asks the fans where they have all travelled from for the show, Germany, Turkey, Switzerland are just some of the answers proving the pulling power of this artists music. Amy seems so relaxed tonight and chats away to the crowd as if they are all her best friends. Guitarist Jamie asks the crowd to light the phone torches up and next thing we know the arena is glowing brightly which is a lovely moment from the set. I’m Done (Games That You Play) is one of the standouts from the latest record and sounded incredible live tonight, all six band members on the stage tonight gave everything to the full performance.
We have been following the Bishopbriggs musicians music since the release of debut album This Is The Life back in 2007 and it’s no surprise that half a dozen songs from that particular album are played tonight and every one of them is sang back with great passion by the hometown crowd. The two OVO Hydro shows are the biggest Amy has played in Scotland and also the last of the very successful European and UK tour this year. As much as we enjoyed the older tracks, the new ones are what we were most interested in hearing and the four from Is This What You’re Waiting For? were a delight to hear live tonight, maybe a few more from that release and an extension of the nineteen-song set would have been worthwhile?
Poison Prince, Barrowland Ballroom and This Is The Life are played in between Statues and Can You Hear Me, the singer comments that we are perhaps a little quieter than last night’s crowd … this helps to liven things up a little. We get the story of when Amy sang Flower Of Scotland at Hampden Park before the Scotland v Argentina football match when the legendary Diego Maradona was standing right next to her! The three-song encore begins with an acoustic version of We Survive and the last from the latest album, this is followed by by a cover of Beluga Lagoon song The Glen, strangely enough who would be headlining in this very same venue the following night? Yes you guessed it, Beluga Lagoon! The crowd really take to this one prompting yet another mass singalong with all six band members now at the front of the stage. Before the last song Amy tells us that the merchandise is sold out tonight, a testament to popularity. The last song of the set is taken from the debut album This Is The Life, Let’s Start A Band is the song and everyone is up on their feet singing and dancing the night away, just as it should be. This really was a special night at the OVO Hydro and we can’t wait to see what Amy Macdonald has planned for next time. We already know she is confirmed for the TRNSMT Festival in 2026 and that’s one to look forward to. 10/10
Written by: Alan Brown
