Gerry Cinnamon
SSE Hydro, Glasgow Touring May 29 to July 18
Martin Amis once wrote a story showing what might happen if the world’s poets changed places with the screenwriters. He pictured the poets lounging by the pool in Beverly Hills, calling their agents, while the screenwriters lived in garrets, longing to be published in little magazines.
Pop music today is rather like that. The natural-born rock stars seem to have swapped with the buskers. On street corners there are singers with cheekbones and attitude wondering why celebrity hasn’t come calling yet.
At gigs you’ll see a bloke standing there, strumming a guitar, with nothing to declare but his ordinariness.
First came Ed Sheeran, then Lewis Capaldi, and now here’s Gerry Cinnamon (above), who may be the biggest name you’ve never heard of
First came Ed Sheeran, then Lewis Capaldi, and now here’s Gerry Cinnamon, who may be the biggest name you’ve never heard of. In the summer he will tour Britain’s arenas, then play Hampden Park in his native Glasgow, becoming the first Scot to be the headliner there.
All 50,000 tickets have already been snapped up.
As overnight sensations go, Cinnamon is actually a veteran – he’s 35. Perhaps the only British pop star to reach the top later in life is another Scot, Susan Boyle, who was 48 when she released her best-selling debut.
She was turbocharged by Britain’s Got Talent, whereas Cinnamon has built a fan base one gig at a time. You take the high road and he’ll take the low road.
At the SSE Hydro he’s so excited that he starts by running right around the stage, as if he was five, not 35. There’s a blizzard of red confetti, but this is quite a simple show: just one man and his songs.
You can see why Cinnamon (born Gerard Crosbie) has gathered a passionate following. He hurls himself into the music and reveals himself in the words. ‘I’m so lonely,’ he sings on Fickle McSelfish, ‘Take my blues away.’
Capable of being vulnerable or spiky, funny or fiery, he wears his heart on his hoodie.
You also get a sense of what took him so long. Several of his songs are standard stuff, straight from the buskers’ handbook. Only two stand out: his twin signature tunes, Canter and Belter, which are big and warm as well as blunt.
If he can write a few more like that, he’ll be a keeper.
gerrycinnamonmusic.com
Abba: Super Troupers The Exhibition
The O2, London Until August 31
Rating: 
Even as an Abba fan, I approached this with a hint of queasiness. After all the hits, Mamma Mia! the musical (still going after 20 years), the two films, an Abba exhibition at Earls Court and, more recently, Mamma Mia! The Party with a Greek taverna meal thrown in, there’s now this.
It really does seem that the name of the game is money, money, money.
Punters here can stroll through a series of rooms armed with an audio guide. The best are at the beginning, one a context-setter showing what was happening in Britain in the early Seventies (trying to join the EEC), another with fake tree trunks and dappled lighting recreating the ‘folkparks’ where Swedes relaxed and frolicked in the group’s early years.
A roomful of telephones represents the song Ring Ring, Abba’s first, failed attempt to do Eurovision, which leads to a small theatre where you can watch their eventual triumph
There are fun facts too – Björn got only a B-minus for singing and music at school – and bizarre TV footage of the group singing California, Here I Come in a western saloon from some naff TV variety show.
A roomful of telephones represents the song Ring Ring, Abba’s first, failed attempt to do Eurovision, which leads to a small theatre where you can watch their eventual triumph in Brighton in 1974 (sadly no clip of The Wombles’ interval act that year).
Thereafter it’s a more familiar trot though the various albums. Some of the artefacts are very likely replicas, the originals being in Stockholm’s Abba museum.
Worse, the various connecting rooms and conflicting soundtracks mean we are under attack from a distracting cacophony of competing noise – aurally it’s a bit of a mess. One for the dedicated dancing queens.
Mark Cook
THIS WEEK’S CD RELEASES
By Adam Woods
Various Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits Out Friday
Rating: 
As gruff as he is, Tom Waits is already a champion of women, as his wife, Kathleen Brennan, has co-written most of his songs for decades. On this single-sex tribute album, his tender yet gritty ballads prove most popular: Aimee Mann tackles Hold On’s tale of a wild girl far from home, Corinne Bailey Rae breathes joy into Jersey Girl, and Iris DeMent finds the country lament at the heart of House Where Nobody Lives
Bill Fay Countless Branches Out Friday
Rating:
After two early Seventies albums, singer- songwriter Bill Fay was resurrected and championed by Wilco, Nick Cave and others. Now he’s three records into his second act, and Countless Branches, built from gentle pianos, acoustic guitars and Fay’s engagingly humble delivery, evinces a grateful awe at the revolving world. No new tricks, just a consistent, understated loveliness
Bombay Bicycle Club Everything Else Has Gone Wrong Out Friday
Rating:
After five years, having variously earned degrees and pursued solo projects, BBC have reformed, and their colourful clever-kid indie-rock, with its doses of folk, electronic and more exotic stuff, feels sturdier and wiser now. ‘I just want to have a good day, and it’s only me that’s standing in my way,’ sings Jack Steadman, with the kind of insight that a decent break gives you