Julio Iglesias
Royal Albert Hall, London
The bar at the Albert Hall is full of leathery men in crisp white shirts ordering champagne at £70 a bottle. They all seem to be accompanied by a younger woman in a little black dress who has come straight from the hairdresser.
Is this a Julio Iglesias concert or the annual general meeting of the Society of Ageing Lotharios?
It’s an impression that Iglesias does nothing to dispel when he addresses the audience in his distinctive brand of English. ‘There is a music,’ he says, ‘who makes people make babies. Maybe some of yours!’
Julio Iglesias at 76 has bags of charm, effortless assurance and a glint of humour. ‘London!’ he declares. ‘Thank you with all my heart for so many years, so many beautiful times…’
Julio himself is reckoned to have fathered nine children, which puts him one up on Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart (eight each). But he warns us not to believe everything we read about him.
‘Don’t think that I made love to 3,000 women,’ he says. ‘That was 1978.’
It’s striking that the only spectator to approach the stage with a bouquet, as opposed to a Spanish flag, is male. Iglesias attracts wannabes as well as female adoration.
And you can see why: at 76 he has bags of charm, effortless assurance and a glint of humour. ‘London!’ he declares. ‘Thank you with all my heart for so many years, so many beautiful times you made me feel alive.’ I bet he says that to all the cities.
Perched on a stool, holding the microphone somewhere near his navel, he often seems to be doing nothing, only for a luxurious murmur to float above the tinkling of a five-piece band.
His three backing vocalists, whose combined age may be less than his, are there to wiggle as much as to sing.
The Iglesias back catalogue is patchy, with plenty of Spanish schmaltz and rather too many arrangements that got stuck in the Eighties, complete with gloopy synthesisers.
His only British No 1, Begin The Beguine, is mysteriously forgotten. But every so often there’s a classy cover – George Michael’s Careless Whisper, The Cars’ Drive and, best of all, Sting’s Fragile, done with heartfelt delicacy.
For a change of pace there’s the odd clap-along Euro-hit such as Me Va, Me Va. This is greeted so warmly that he reprises it 20 minutes later.
The tour is billed as a 50th-anniversary farewell but Iglesias leaves that door ajar. ‘I am conscious,’ he says, ‘that I am in the Albert Hall maybe for the last time.’ Charles Aznavour was still appearing on this stage in his 90s, and Iglesias is surely his natural successor – the father of the Hall.
Squeeze/Heaven 17
New Theatre, Oxford Touring until November 22
Rating: 
Squeeze are on tour with Heaven 17, which means you can hear Tempted and Temptation in the same evening. It also means that hardly anybody arrives late. Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 now come with female reinforcements – an extra keyboard player and two powerful backing singers, who add a layer of feeling to their literate electro-pop.
The song that made Heaven 17’s name, (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang, feels a little too resonant as Gregory sings ‘history will repeat itself’. When it was first released, in 1981, it was banned by the BBC.
(These days the Beeb might be more alarmed by Come Live With Me, which begins with the line: ‘I was 37, you were 17’.) They move on to Let Me Go and Temptation, from the barnstorming end of their repertoire, and become one of the few support acts ever to earn a standing ovation.
Squeeze just get on with celebrating the craftsmanship of their songwriters, Chris Difford (responsible for the gritty lyrics) and Glenn Tilbrook (above, the silky tunes)
Some headliners might be rattled but Squeeze just surf the wave of warmth and get on with celebrating the craftsmanship of their songwriters, Chris Difford (responsible for the gritty lyrics) and Glenn Tilbrook (the silky tunes).
They use the video screen to show footage of themselves backstage a few hours earlier, a simple ploy that draws you in, and they use the foyer to promote the Trussell Trust food banks.
Every ticket-holder is asked to donate a tin or a packet of biscuits; many bring a whole bag.
Squeeze’s songs still hit the spot, whether they’re power-pop or country ballads, because Difford and Tilbrook know how to tell a story. You go away wanting to add half their set to a playlist, from the swagger of Cool For Cats to the sadness of Labelled With Love.
This is a show that feeds the soul as well as the hungry.
squeezeofficial.com
THIS WEEK’S CDS
By Adam Woods
Kanye West Jesus Is King Out now
Rating: 
Kanye West has been promising his ninth album for more than a year and has finally released this 27-minute collection of Christian hip-hop. The production – always West’s great strength – is fairly dramatic, with gospel choirs, Kenny G sax solos and epic synths, but overall this brief record feels slight
Bob Dylan (feat Johnny Cash)
Travelin’ Thru – The Bootleg Series Vol 15 Out now
Rating:
Vol 15 is a middling entry in Columbia’s trawl through Bob Dylan’s unreleased songs, but its real selling point is a 1969 session with Johnny Cash. Cash rumbles grandly while Dylan warbles obligingly around him on each other’s classics