Bruno Mars On A 24K Magic Night (In Glasgow)
Bruno Mars: the Michael Jackson of this generation. On Thursday 13th April, Bruno Mars arrived in Glasgow to give us the performance of a lifetime. Sorry Queen Bey, but Mr Mars, The King, or King Mars as I refer to him, has won this by a landslide.
When the white curtain, with image of a gold crown and the name Mars written inside, finally dropped, it revealed a chunky multi-coloured setting. It looked like Bruno and his crew were performing in the inside of a Rubik’s cube. His songs are, and always will be, extremely catchy, but Mars himself lit up the stage with an energy that shone as brightly as the colours surrounding him.
This was a skilled, superb and very entertaining pop spectacle, with fireworks, flames and a lot of glitter, and a singer who never revealed too much of himself beyond the audience participation, but gave plenty of shout-outs to the Glasgow ladies in the crowd.
Bruno Mars is a fantastic, powerful vocalist, an energetic dancer and a smooth operator when playing the crowd, especially in a section of Runaway Baby, where he dropped the noise right down and then built everyone back up was well thought and executed. Even though Mars is perceived as a “ladies’ man”, that doesn’t come through in his personality, which makes him even more likeable as a person, rather than coming across as a sleaze.
Bruno Mars’ songs don’t have that pop element to them, like most of the songs of these modern times. They have more of a eighties/ninety’s, Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men vibe to them, but his songs are either aimed at the heart or the down below region.
The first half of the concert focussed heavily on last year’s 24K Magic, with the main track’s early ninety’s vibe, his single ‘Perm’ gave Mars more of an opportunity to live out his James Brown aspirations with a jazzy, funky display, Chunky with its’ slow and easy strut, based on sweet synths and gently popping bass, That’s What I like, giving you a sense of déjà vu, with that early nineties feel to it, with some classic R&B that has a little bit of a New Jack Swing and hip-hop edge to it and Finesse, within seconds of hearing it, it may make you search for anything to do with Ghostbusters 2, no joke. From Bruno’s tightly clipped vocals to the orchestral stab to the song’s slamming new Jack Beat.
Then came his old classic hits, dedicated to some arm waving, body moving and lighters in the air. Bruno himself kept moving about throughout the concert, slickly and smoothly choreographed, but with a sense of style, ending with Locked out of Heaven and of course the world number one back in 2014/2015, Uptown Funk, irresistibly maintaining the good vibes quality that pop can provide.
A night with Bruno Mars was certainly 24K Magic with a bit of Uptown Funk (see what I did there? haha). As it states in Mr Mars’ name, he is most definitely, undeniably, Out of This World!
