A night of wicked wit and disarming tenderness from the polymath songwriter…

Tim Minchin strides onstage beneath a lurid, psychedelic wash, flanked by a razor‑tight five‑piece and his regulation shiny black grand. “Every nerd in Glasgow is here,” observes Tim through his shiny Barry Gibb grin – and judging by the packed Armadillo, he may be right. At 50 he looks absurdly healthy, lustrous ginger locks bobbing as he cracks his knuckles over the keys.

Billed as “Songs The World Will Never Hear” – winking to that line in breakthrough track ‘Rock & Roll Nerd’ – this show is essentially a two‑hour retrospective. ‘Revolting Children’ hearkens back to his Matilda triumph, Netflix projections syncing flawlessly with the band’s toe‑tapping swing. His spikier, anti‑religious era surfaces in a barn‑storming ‘The Good Book’. “I wasn’t going to play this,” he shrugs, “but then the Pentecostals put Trump back in the White House, so I thought fuck ‘em.”

Minchin isn’t afraid to cock tease his flock, hinting at many a classic song he now refuses to play. Why? It clearly bugs him to be shelved next to “Weird Al” as a novelty turn. But this evening’s pendulum swing between earnestness and unfiltered silliness works, and is exactly why the crowd adores him.

Those tender moments land hardest, as it happens, A piano‑only ode to wife Sarah melts the room, while 2020’s ‘I’ll Take Lonely Tonight’ – about turned-down tour‑bus temptation – draws cheers of recognition. Recent single ‘Ruby’, however, for me at least, drifts a little in its earnest abstraction, leaving the hall fidgeting in anticipation of a punchline that never comes.

Brand‑new ballad ‘Peace’ is outstanding, and strikes a much finer balance between the artist he wants to be, and the man we’ve all hired babysitters to come out and see. Vulnerable, lightly comic, ‘Peace’ reminds everyone why a spotlight and a Steinway were once ample – whisper it, but at times in the first set, the band overwhelms his piano playing, a little, in a way that serves nobody. 

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A preview of forthcoming album Time Machine sparks genuine excitement. ‘The Song Of The Masochist’ is a wicked, full‑throttle banger that proves his older material still bites. It has a hook! Set two opens with his gleeful ode to breasts, confirming Minchin, for all his yearning to be taken seriously, knows precisely which side his bread is buttered.

Tears flow for seasonal fave ‘White Wine In The Sun’, written for a baby daughter now eighteen. And in a neat circle, the encore sees Minchin – having entreated us to “turn off your motherfucking phones” – now order them aloft, a shimmering swaying sea of LED glow accompanying a 2004 video of an impossibly gawky short‑haired Tim hammering a wonky upright in some titchy Melbourne club. 

Songs once destined for obscurity find their moment, while others remain locked in Minchin’s vault, tantalising us for a future gig. As the crowd files out into a sultry midsummer night, we’ve all had both the laughs and the lump‑in‑throat – and that, nerds of Glasgow will agree, is exactly why we love him. Funny, that. 

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Words: Andy Hill

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