Philip from Aylesbury

It's the first time we (my wife and I) have seen him live, and it was a fantastic concert.  He is a great entertainer, full of charisma and energy, and he never sang out of tune.  


He started 20 minutes late, due to a technical problem, but... [more]

Event Date: May 16, 2009
Event Venue: Oxford New Theatre

It's the first time we (my wife and I) have seen him live, and it was a fantastic concert.  He is a great entertainer, full of charisma and energy, and he never sang out of tune.  


He started 20 minutes late, due to a technical problem, but he explained why over the tannoy himself.  There was a good mix of songs – both from the shows and also the 70s/80s; songs that have appeared on his albums.   In between each song, he talked about his childhood in Scotland and in the USA and the reasons for choosing the next song.   Every song hence had a personal story behind it – in the main a funny story, but the occasional sad story.  Every song was therefore sung from the heart with passion – whether it be a ballad, or a disco tune.   He enjoyed laughing and joking with the audience whenever the opportunity arose.  

As well as an excellent group of musicians, he was accompanied on stage for most of the songs by 4 dancers – 2 female, and 2 male.  And there was a very good camaraderie between the 5 of them.  

The show ran for about 2 ½ hours – after about 25 minutes, he was replaced on stage by his Special Guest “Daniel Boys” (one of the auditionees for the TV show Any Dream Will Do)”.  Daniel sang about 3 songs, before John bounded back on stage.  This was replicated in the 2nd half (yes, a gig with 2 halves – I’ve never seen ice cream at a concert before!).   Daniel was just as good as John, and was well loved and appreciated by the audience (which I think was a full house)

Highlights of the evening

1) To mix his Scottish heritage with his love of musicals, he sang, in his Scottish accent, a medley of well known show tunes to Scottish country music.    We fell about with laughter.  

2) His mum (early 70s) and dad (late 70s) joined him on stage to do their own special dance called the Slosh, to the tune of Knock 3 times (which also involved audience participation of clapping and making noises at appropriate points in the song (you had to be there!)

3) All songs were sung with passion and in tune.

4) The female dancers didn’t look too bad!


Lowpoints of the evening

1)       Where we were sitting in the stalls, our views of the percussionist and saxophone player were blocked by speakers on the left of the stage

2)       Some women in the audience becoming over enthusiastic whenever John spoke (shouting “We love you John” whenever the opportunity arose which became irritating after the first few times).

3)       It had to end, as we could have listened to him talking and singing for hours to come.


If he comes to Oxford again, I would definitely recommend it, (we’ll definitely be going again, and again, and again …), but maybe not for non-fans of him, as I think  you have to understand where he’s coming from to get his humour and stories, and understand his personality.  He is Mr Charisma, and Mr Entertainer.  

We are both still humming the tunes he was singing 5 days later. [less]