‘Get lifted” is Glaswegian slang for being taken into police custody. It seems unlikely, to say the least, that John Legend knew this when choosing Glasgow to open his Get Lifted 20th Anniversary world tour. Still, his appearance is appropriately arresting, strolling on stage in the sort of dazzling white suit that looked so fine on Marvin Gaye and Al Green. “Can I be sexy tonight?” he asks – the very definition of a rhetorical question – ahead of She Don’t Have to Know, a breezy ode to cheating.
The tour is a celebration of his classic debut, an album that announced Legend as a soul man who could, it seemed, be spoken of in the same breath as giants of the genre. In his 20s when Get Lifted was released, he’s now 46: a middle-aged star playing the songs of a hungry – and horny – young musician; a husband and father singing of infidelity and reconciliation.
Perhaps because he no longer feels the words he wrote back then, there’s something bloodless about much of the performance. He is a wonderful singer and his nine-piece band skilled, but the set is drilled to the point of being dull. Legend is a former management consultant – as he mentioned during one of the interminable “my musical journey” talky bits – and one suspects that somewhere backstage is a PowerPoint plotting every priapic strut and yelp. His between-song chat is so cheesy that when he asks us to “Make some noise for Philadelphia!” it isn’t clear whether we are being urged to cheer the city or the spread.
His playing is expressive enough; no need for all that commentary. The ballads Ordinary People and All of Me, solo at the piano, are beautiful songs beautifully performed. Take My Hand, Precious Lord shows off his gospel roots. There is even a curveball Beatles cover, I Want You (She’s So Heavy), stitched seamlessly to the end of his own I Can Change.
Those are highlights, but the show as a whole drags. At two hours we are detained too long and it is a relief to be released.
• John Legend plays Co-op Live, Manchester, 29 May, then tours the UK until 1 June
