Olivia Dean live in Glasgow: Britain’s newest superstar puts on a joyous show

“If you don’t fancy yourself,” smiles Olivia Dean to Glasgow’s sold-out OVO Arena, speaking with the soft intimacy of a small jazz club set, “how do you expect someone to fancy you?”

Classy is the only word to describe Dean and her lusciously warm, sonically brilliant performance. Before the curtain is even lifted, her silhouette glows in dusty lighting, every bit the physical figure of blues singers gone by.

Clad in a sparkling pink dress, flanked by a band in black tie, she appears, greeted by her young female crowd with zealous applause. This is the first night of her international, all-arena, ‘The Art of Loving Live’ tour. The album itself, her chart-topping second record The Art of Loving, won a Brit and a MOBO, while Dean herself won all the big prizes at both ceremonies. At one point in the night, Dean recalls the last time she was in Glasgow, playing at nearby King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, 300 capacity. A girl next to me, quite understandably, gasps.

Dean immediately begins with the first track of the album, ‘The Art of Loving (Intro)’, and follows with tracks ‘Nice to Each Other’ and ‘Lady Lady’. Singing live, her strong, soulful vocals land even more powerfully than recorded. 

Akin to her music, Dean strikes a delicate balance between smoky soul singer and pop older sister. Jiving around the stage with her band, she has enough star power to declare at Glasgow Airport customs. Yet her significant absence of stage hijinks and excessive choreography – there are no dancers, just two back-up singers – amplify the authority of her voice.

Both her music and herself, sweet and yet still markedly a London girl at heart – “I love you too,” she replies to a shout out from the audience, “But we’ll be here all night” – are a tonic for our troubled times. Several of her ballads leave her teenage fans around me with tears in their eyes. Dressed in kitten heels and nice tops, her adoring audience are awed, holding onto her every word.

What does a modern soul singer look like today? Dean flirts with her jazzy side throughout her performance, toning it down for personal moments and sentimental ballads that are genuinely touching. “This is for my granny, and also your granny,” Dean says in introduction to ‘Carmen’, her 2023 tribute to her Windrush generation grandmother.

But it’s during her livelier songs that she really asserts herself in a league of her own. Bouncing from fan favourite of her second album ‘Baby Steps’ to her first album’s ‘Ladies Room’, her set peaks with an unexpected cover of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move On Up’. Here, Dean is in her absolute stride. Complimenting her band and her singers, there’s a particularly fun point when the saxophonist and the trumpeter take centre stage, and Dean twirls around, clearly ecstatic. She is Motown glamour for the 21st century, and yet Dean’s authentic performance never feels like homage.

It’s a thoroughly heartfelt performance, as jubilant as it is sincere. Dean is a generational talent that, despite the acclaim and awards that would merit taking herself seriously, is having fun with it all. She concludes with last year’s ubiquitous ‘Man I Need’, and Dean good-naturedly struts the stage with the same gusto that carries the set, leaning towards the audience and their phones below. For the jazzy bridge, gorgeously stretched out for a proper finale, the sea of fans below me start clapping their hands in unison. Bathed in pink light, confetti erupts over the masses below. It’s a gorgeous moment for a joyous show.