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Kai Palmer enjoys a night of superb musicianship and hits aplenty from the mesmerising artist
Image by Jamie Huntley
Noone rock ‘n’ rolls as hard as The Girl from Detroit City. Tonight at the Glasshouse, we’re celebrating 62 years of unquenchable prowess from singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and actress Suzi Quatro, encompassing tracks from her self-titled 1973 debut to latest album Freedom, released this year.
There’s no opener, just Suzi Q, and so the sold-out show commences with a reel from the early ‘70s where American music legend Elvis Presley glistens in a nostalgic flashback. The narration shifts, revealing the emergence of a new rock and roll prodigy… and who could that be?
That’s her cue. Quatro and her trusty ensemble take the stage to The Wild One but with the tempo knocked up to intensify the untameable spirit; one which she’s embodied since the beginning.
Soon enough comes the tough-as-nails attitude of her debut with Daytona Demon and 48 Crash, stirring the crowd with their catchy choruses and ambiguous yet punchy metaphors. Mama’s Boy takes a dig at emotionally feeble men and presents an opportunity for wry dedication among the crowd with finger-pointing and giggles.
I Bit Off More Than I Could Chew, from her third release, breaks away from the glam-rock style she broke out with and became her first to use horns and backup singers. This track revealed a sensual, funkier fragment of her musical self. Her backup girls and “horny boys”, as she calls them this evening, help rile the track up to a tight groove reminiscent of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition.
A dance version of Stumblin’ In was likely not on anyone’s bingo cards in 2023, but it did indeed happen. Quatro plays a snippet and shakes along to the remix, and then snaps out of it to play us the classic. Originally sang with Smokie’s Chris Norman, its romantic melody is warm and timeless, so much that it’s a comforting staple on the setlist.
New tracks Freedom and Little Miss Lovely (“all the interviewers want to know if this song is about me!”) take us full circle back to her gritty, fast-paced roots. A track which relishes in the sound of freedom hits differently when it comes from a woman who entered an industry and a genre of music that was totally dominated by men, and tore through it unapologetically.
She notes that she never performs a track on tour that she hasn’t recorded herself and gets right into a bluesy cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising. They did Suzi Q, this is her response. Likewise, her 2005 cover of Neil Young’s Rockin’ In The Free World is electrifying. The rasp in her voice emanates a daring dominance across the stage and solidifies the belief that she rocks hard and from the soul.
This is not the career of a cut-and-paste rock star. Quatro has remained curious and open to collaborations within the pop-rock realm. Shine A Light, her duet with KT Tunstall, invites a sea of white phone torches to mark the occasion. When Coldplay do it, it’s cheesy, but when Suzi Quatro tells you to turn your torch on and wave it around, it means something more and the weight of the moment sets in.
“Wanna hear my radio voice?” she smirks as recalls that, aside from being a pioneer in her region of rock, she also had a 12 year tenure as a host on BBC Radio 2. Anything else? Oh yes. “This one, I didn’t see coming…” she remarks, boasting being made an Honorary Doctor of Music by Anglia Ruskin University. “Next time you want to see me, make an appointment”.
“Well I’ve seen you before / On that discotheque floor”. Such a simple yet inviting line that makes up the intro to If You Can’t Give Me Love, which, along with She’s In Love With You, is one of the numbers that gets most people out of their seats and swaying.
We’ve been teased with the unmistakable, stomping rhythm of Can The Can – her first to reach UK number one – once before tonight before cutting to a different track, but this time the can really is being canned and the only way it could’ve been better is if she played it twice. To help us dampen our sweat after the excitement, she closes the show with Singing With Angels, her tribute to Elvis Presley, who she cites as the inspiration for it all.
Six decades in music and (Doctor) Suzi Quatro, without a doubt, holds an impressive legacy with an equally mesmerising discography that’s worth delving deep into to see what gems await you, and if tonight is anything to go by, there’ll be more than a few.
