Suzi Quatro has a confession. At 75, age has taken its toll, she tells the Glasgow crowd. She has lost an inch in height and is now 5ft 1in. “But,” she grins, “I can still scream just as loud.” Proof comes during 48 Crash. It is a thrilling noise, the Suzi Q scream, a holler of swallow-the-world desire and a defining sound of the glam era. She has been screaming like that since she was a kid playing dance halls around Detroit. There is something eternally teenage about her, an innocent in black leather, so that even when she covers Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World, towards the end of the first of two sets, she drains the song of anger and floods it with galvanising sincerity.
While the opening hour is entertaining and well paced, the second, longer set is a mess of lesser material, tedious solos and drawn-out introductions of her eight-piece band. Worst is the stretch in which Quatro runs through her career with the aid of pictures: “Fifteen years on BBC Radio 2. I was up for broadcaster of the year at the Sony Radio awards.” Ever wondered what it would be like if Alan Partridge delivered a PowerPoint in the middle of a rock gig? Not great.
