Review: Glenn Hughes, Fleece

There is, as they say, a lot of love in the room tonight. Just 24 hours ago, Glenn Hughes was at his dear old mum’s bedside when she died. Everyone in the packed Fleece audience would have understood if he’d chosen to pull or reschedule this last date on his UK tour. But here he is, resplendent in hippy chic and shades, looking in far better shape than any 64-year-old rocker with the full rap sheet of past misdemeanours (including, I shit you not, chocolate addiction) and two brand new knees has any right to. “You didn’t come here to see me,” he tells us. “I came to see you. I need the love of people like you in my life right now.” That might sound like purest cheese from his adopted LA hometown, but he’s alert to the caricature (“If I sound like a hippy, that’s because I am”) and is absolutely sincere.

When some rather excitable young ladies down the front declare love of a more carnal than spiritual nature, Glenn eyes them paternally and remarks that he’s old enough to be their father…or grandfather. “Still interested!” comes the lustful response.

Rock singers of a certain vintage tend to fall into two camps. There are those whose voices aren’t what they used to be and are reduced to something of an angry rasp (Glenn’s old mucker David Coverdale) or have the wisdom to rework their material to suit a more limited range (Ian Gillan and even the great Robert Plant). Then there’s a much smaller group who seem completely unaffected by the passage of time. Two songs in and Glenn is already hitting each and every one of those extraordinary high notes in Muscle and Blood from the superb Hughes/Thrall album. He doesn’t miss a single one all evening, fully justifying all that hyperbole about being The Voice of Rock.

As he promised, this is a career-spanning set with the accent on the hard rockin’ end of his repertoire that we all want to hear. His hulking great (each more than six feet tall) Scandinavian backing band are particularly well equipped to deliver this, with Lachy Doley giving it the full Jon Lord on the Hammond organ during Deep Purple’s Might Just Take Your Life and longtime guitarist collaborator Soren Andersen proving equally adept at aping Ritchie Blackmore’s classically-influenced style and the late Tommy Bolin’s funkier, jazzier approach on the likes of Gettin’ Tighter and You Keep on Moving (famously dismissed as “shoeshine music” by the curmudgeonly Blackmore). On stage, they keep a respectful distance behind the star of the show, with Andersen stepping forward to take the occasional solo before retreating again.

The propulsive Black Country from the first Black Country Communion album reminds us that Glenn is also no slouch on the bass guitar, driving the song along as though possessed by the ghosts of Lemmy and Chris Squire. And the proggy Medusa from his first successful band, Trapeze, proves a real treat, prompting a reminiscence about how he played the song at both the Granary club and Colston Hall nearly 40 years before it was revived by Black Country Communion. First encore Heavy demonstrates that he’s lost none of his knack for writing timeless funky hard rock and sits comfortably alongside the title track from Purple’s Burn, with which he leaves us.

If performing on such an occasion as this is some kind of catharsis for Glenn then we’re all winners given the emotion he pours into it. He departs the stage exhorting us all to call our mothers and love each other, which carries a particular resonance in the current political climate of division and hate. Let’s hope he makes good on that promise to return in happier personal circumstances.

All photos by Mike Evans

Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: February 2017