I’ve remarked before - as have others - that John Grant could recite the phone book and cause grown men to weep, but the statement holds as true now as it did when he first performed Queen Of Denmark, his glorious debut solo album, 15 years ago.

Tonight’s show kicked off with one of that album’s weirder numbers (That's The Good News), and set the tone for the evening, with more synth than piano and a greater focus on Grant’s fuzzy and ever-so-slightly sleazy brand of clubland electronica. It’s something he mostly does well, as All That School For Nothing, Black Belt and It’s A Bitch amply demonstrated, but it was disappointing (ahem) to hear so many numbers from 2018’s Love Is Magic and latest album The Art Of The Lie that distorted his beautiful baritone voice with vocoders and other effects. It’s what we come to hear after all.

I’m guessing a few others felt the same way judging by the number of audience members that slipped out early, but those that did stay the course got plenty to enjoy, including the “funeral dirge” (his words) of Touch And Go alongside wonderful readings of Marz, Doesn’t Matter To Him, Queen Of Denmark (dedicated to Sinead O’Connor) and Substitution, a new song written as part of Grant’s collaboration with the Royal Ballet, an endeavour he says is likely to spawn his next album.

For now he’s happy to pirouette between ballads and beats - typically donning sunglasses for the latter – with scant regard for blame or to explain. Indeed, even though the normally jovial singer and his multi-talented three-piece backing band seemed in good spirits, his usual entertaining (and typically acerbic) banter was in relatively short supply. Maybe he was fed up at not getting the chance to take a seat at the restaurant table set up on stage where his bandmates, including Cov kid keyboard player Chris Pemberton, could kick back with a glass of vino when not joining in on one of their many instruments, or maybe he clocked a few of those punters drifting off before the end. Either way he, and we, all knew it was their loss, because this GMF is definitely worth hanging on for.

Three stars

Reviewed by Steve Adams at Warwick Arts Centre on Monday 13 October.