The Marrs Bar, Worcester - review by Helen Burns

Drove over to Worcester last night for Glenn’s gig at the Marrs Bar. I’d forgotten what a lovely cathedral city Worcester is, and the drive over there in the Autumn sun as the moon rose over the horizon made me feel glad to be alive.

Anyway, bugger the lyrical stuff – the Marrs Bar is a compact first floor venue in the city centre, with friendly helpful staff and a good atmosphere.  There were cabaret style tables set out in front of the stage and standing room at the side by the bar. It became so full that it was almost impossible to move.

The support act was good, and Glenn was onstage at about 9.25. Sartorial stuff: black Cornell Hurd Band T shirt (Genitalia of a Fool went down very well tonight and Glenn plugged Cornell Hurd very enthusiastically), torn jeans (where does he get these from? Does he buy them like that or does he spend a lot of time shuffling around on his knees doing Toulouse Lautrec impressions?), lace up trainers. The hair, I have to say, looks SO much better a bit shorter, much more dignified for a 47 year old…….

There was lots of banter with the audience, all the audience participation numbers, a stint going round the crowd playing Goodbye Girl and even an abortive attempt to get people standing by the stage and filling in the gap. Glenn worked very hard but they were largely a Greatest Hits audience.  The chatter reached irritating levels of intensity whenever he did a new song, especially galling during Hostage. A new song or a more obscure Squeeze song seemed to be a cue for a large percentage of them to head for the bar/toilets. This happens everywhere, I know, but somehow it’s that much more noticeable in a cabaret setting. So, Glenn ended up doing lots of stuff that they’d know, and up tempo numbers like Annie and Messed Around.

He did attempt a little of Misadventure after a request, but couldn’t remember it. He did an achingly lovely rendition of Wichita Lineman. Always on my Mind, SFP, Parallel World, the Truth……can’t remember them all but it was a good, if not esoteric, selection. New songs were Untouchable, Hostage, HSAT and Genitalia.

One encore. By the end of it he had them all eating out of his hand, of course, and they were on the whole a good crowd. I heard one woman in the toilets after the show saying that she’d really enjoyed it even though she only knew the ‘Woman from Clapham’ song.

He’s currently engaged in going through all his old demos, right from the early stuff, with a view to releasing these as a set of CDs. The trouble is that the stuff between 1983 and 1986 is (in Glenn’s own words) bollocks. He said that the songs that made it to the albums were so bad so you can imagine how good the demos are that didn’t make it. Will shall see – it will be a very intriguing project.

He and Suzanne were driving straight off after the gig up to Scotland. No chilling out for Glenn!