Spiteri's energy proves boundless as she delivers Texas classics

I was immediately impressed by the location of the Liverpool Echo Arena, where one of my idols Sharleen Spiteri, the voice of Texas, played on Sunday night as part of Liverpool's month long Summer Pops music festival. To start with I could prepay £4 to park all afternoon in the arena car park, which was an absolute bargain. It gave me the chance to explore the fascinating Albert Dock, before heading to the arena entrance grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of a knock out concert from Spiteri.

The Liverpool Echo Arena, a feat of modern architecture, was slick, clean and well organised. I quickly made my way to my seat, having arrived just before the support act was due on, to find that the arena was almost empty – frighteningly empty in fact. It wasn't long before I was offered a seat upgrade to be moved much closer to the front. It turned out that although there were around 4000 seats (two thirds of the arena had been curtained off behind the stage), only 800 had been sold and half of the 1,200 people that had been given complimentary tickets weren't even going to bother turning up! Yikes.

I felt sorry for Spiteri, who is used to filling far larger stadiums to bursting point when Texas was in its heyday. Whether it was the fault of the promoters, the fact that people just don't know who Spiteri is outside of Texas, or whether they didn't like her latest 50's and 60's influenced solo album 'Melody', was unclear. However I was determined to make the most of it, as were all the other dedicated fans who had bought tickets to see her.

I had to sit through Henry Priestman's set, full of middle aged man angst, first. Priestman, of previous The Christian's fame, has just released his new solo album 'The Chronicles of Modern Life', and he mixed acoustic songs from this album in with a couple of The Christians tracks including mediocre renditions of 'Ideal World' and 'Born Again'. As I'm not a middle aged man with teenage kids I found it hard to relate to his acoustic guitar tunes such as 'Old', 'He Ain't Good Enough For You', 'No To The Logo' and 'Don't You Love Me No More'. There was just too much talking in between songs for me, although a lot of the male crowd did show their appreciation!

It didn't take long for Spiteri to hit the stage, and although it was evident to her that she was performing to a largely empty arena, she played and sang as though it was packed to the rafters. In fact it didn’t take me long to totally forget the empty seats around me and become totally immersed in the music.

Dressed casually in turned up jeans, suede boots and a jean shirt, Spiteri has had her hair chopped into a shorter, much more sexy and sultry style than you can see on the cover of Melody; the old Spiteri is back! She delighted the audience with perfect, stunning vocals during 'Francoise' and shouted in her lovely Scottish accent "this is the moment where you have to get up", before jumping straight into 'It Was You', which had fans up dancing and screaming at the front. One male in the crowd got so carried away that he screamed "Your gorgeous" to which Spiteri quickly replied "yes, that's right, I always bring my Dad to gigs!"

Other songs from Melody included in the gig were 'Where Did It Go Wrong', which was met with huge cheers, plus 'Don't Keep Me Waiting' and 'I'm Going To Haunt You', which just makes you want to don a Stetson and spurs and start line dancing! A surprise rendition of 70’s hit 'Baby It's You' was also seamlessly included in the set.

However, it was amazing Texas hits from albums like 'White On Blonde', 'The Hush', and 'Red Book' that astounded me and everyone around me. Okay, the seven piece backing band weren't Texas by any means, but if I ignored the often harsh brass section, the astounding sound of Spiteri's voice shone through again and again when she belted out 'Black Eyed Boy', 'Say What You Want', 'Summer Son', 'In Demand', 'I Don't Want A Lover', 'Halo' and 'Inner Smile', which all rocked the roof. It brought back all the times I had seen Texas live, and proved to me that Spiteri has still got it.

The adoring audience were so energetic, so animated and so appreciative of her performance that Spiteri tossed the set list aside for the encore. Instead of just singing one song she treated us to a brilliant cover of The Clash's 'Should I Stay or Should I Go', along with 'All The Times I Cried' and another cover ("one of the greatest songs ever written" according to Spiteri) 'River Deep Mountain High' which generated a brilliant party atmosphere that saw everyone on their feet dancing, clapping and cheering. One lucky fan walked away with Spiteri's tambourine at the end of it all – an exhilarating end to a great set!

All in all Spiteri is just as amazing as ever, her stage presence (full of interesting Elvis like dance moves and little gigs) still as huge as ever, and her energy boundless. They may try and say that she's a 'yummy mummy' nowadays, but let's not forget just what a singer she is. Newbies like Duffy and Adele would be hard pressed to match the quality, clarity, tone and depth. 'Melody' may not have been the greatest solo album that could have come from Spiteri's lips, but I'm sure that there's much more to come!

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