Concert review :
Wembley Arena, London, UK - 8 & 9 February 2001
from The Times by Nigel Williamson

SHE dressed up as Elvis Presley for the band’s current video, but the truth is that Sharleen Spiteri can do almost anyone. The first of two Wembley dates found Texas’s singer adopting a bewildering number of chameleon-like voices.
Dressed in a denim shirt and wearing little make-up, she strapped on an electric guitar and rocked out like Chrissie Hynde. At the keyboard for a version of Al Green’s Tired of Being Alone she turned into a soul diva.

With an acoustic guitar on Put Your Arms Around Me she became a folk troubadour in the Joni Mitchell tradition. Then on Prayer for You she was transformed into a gospel shouter straight out of the Aretha Franklin school.

It was a staggeringly versatile repertoire of styles and made you realise just why the Scottish band’s Greatest Hits album has sold 1.5 million copies in the four months since its release. There is, quite literally, something for everyone — a touch of dance via the polite programming of In a Lifetime, an Abba-style Seventies dancefloor classic in Summer Son, a highly credible guitar hero in Ally McErlaine and a pop sureness of touch worthy of the early Phil Spector from the group’s musical mastermind, Johnny McElhone.

Yet it is Spiteri who remains the centre of attention. She has always possessed one of British pop’s most soulful voices but she’s steadily grown in stature as a live performer and with her easy banter between songs she flirted with the audience with humour and authority. The “greatest hits” format made for a certain predictability but the encore produced one surprise. Having changed into a black leather motorcycle suit, she sandwiched a dynamic interpretation of Presley’s Suspicious Minds between Inner Smile and the inevitable closer, Say What You Want.


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