Having had to postpone some UK dates for his Tuskegee tour back in September this year, Lionel Richie finally graced the stage of the SECC on the 14th of December. Having seen him twice previously, would it still be as good?
Supporting Lionel was a lass from Sheffield named Philippa Hanna. It was just herself and her guitar and to be honest, she looked dwarfed on the stage. She opened with her track Happy In My Skin before heading into Summer Bride (a track inspired by a story a friend told her not to tell anyone…so she tells everyone in song!). A short pause as she mentions she comes from a musical family and that her dad used to sing a Lionel Richie track and dedicate it to her mum. Feeling that it would be a little inappropriate to sing a Lionel track, she instead opts to sing Always On My Mind mixed in with the well known track Loch Lomand. Another song and she introduces her next track as being inspired by a friend who went for cosmetic surgery and how she thought it was wrong that people had go down that route to make themselves felt great. This leads into I Am Amazing before ending her set with Work In Progress.
Finally the main act can begin. Not one to usually have a fancy set, this year would be different in that in the centre was a staircase, and the band was situated in front of. An intro of a sort of dance version of Hello gets the crowd excited before the man himself appears atop the staircase and heads into All Around The World and then straight into Penny Lover. Pausing for a moment, he apologises for being late but that he would make it up to the audience by singing every song that he ever wrote. The bad news was that he’d forgotten most of them, but if the audience would sing with him, it would probably work. Like he has to ask! He also comments about the lovely spring weather that Glasgow is having and asks if we spend the whole year there or fly south for the winter. As he sits at the piano he starts singing Easy accompanied by a few thousand other singers. Next he sings the track that he wrote for his daughter, Ballerina Girl. 
Sitting back at the piano, he talks about how ‘we’ve known each other for years’ and how ‘we’ been though the good and the bad times. So begins 3 short renditions starting with when the love of you life has told you that it’s over and they’ve left you. This leads to Love You Still. The next story is when you see the love of your life walk in with another woman (Crazy Over You) and then finally, when come out the other side, the grass is green and the sky is blue (except in Glasgow) then the song you want is Stuck On You. Leaving the piano, Lionel points out that he dying from sweat on stage and the audience looks too comfortable and he’s deciding that if he’s sweating, so are the audience. There is only two ways that this next track can be done…many have worked out the name but before he can say anything, a piece of lady’s underwear ends up on the stage, rendering him speechless. He then points out that there could be 3 ways to do the next track. It is of course Dancing On The Ceiling.
Next he gives the audience the background to his next track and how it was inspired by his dad giving a toast to his mother over dinner one night. It went on to be a 7 million selling hit and all his dad keeps asking is where's his cheque. The song is of course Three Times A Lady. Followed by this is Sail On. Next is a medley of Commadores tracks (Fancy Dancer, Sweet Love And Lady (You Bring Me Up) 
Lionel tells how he tried calling up Diana Ross to have her make a surprise appearance in Glasgow to perform their track and she said no. He tries again telling her it's Glasgow, on a Friday night and still she said no. So instead he'd sing it with a thousand Diana Ross'. Of course the track he means is Endless Love. He follows up singing Brick House and then Destiny. The stage goes quiet before he reappears up on the staircase singing Say You Say Me before heading straight into Running With The Night.
Assuming his position back at the piano, he wants to sing a song that people seem to want to sing back to him all over the world. It is of course Hello. Of course the audience isn't one for stopping and ready to keep going All Night Long. Just to show that he's down with what's popular, he does as a parody of one of the most popular songs in 2012. It is of course Gangnam Style though performed as Lionel Richie Style. Disappearing for a moment, he comes back to sing Hard To Say Goodbye 
It's hard to believe that it's been 2 years since he was last in the Scottish city but showed that he could teach the young ones a thing or two about putting a show on. It's always a party atmosphere when he plays and sometimes it's hard to wonder why there are seats. He has a great sense of humour (even making a joke about the Lionel Richie audience going nude and what a youtube video that would make) and it's obvious that he enjoys what he does. Another great night that was well worth the ticket price.
Photos
Philippa Hanna: from official facebook page
Lionel Richie © Vhari Lannigan (from 2009 tour)
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