Peter Andre performs his Big Night Tour at The Royal Concert Hall Nottingham on Thursday 23rd October 2014


Images and Review by Kevin Cooper

You might imagine that Peter Andre no longer has a musical career as he regularly appears on TV shows these days such as 60 Minute Make Over, opening his own chain of coffee shops and advertising food for the supermarket brand, Iceland. But that is simply not the case as this summer he released a new album; Big Night Out, which is in the tradition of jazz and swing bands. Think more Michael Buble rather than Jools Holland’s Big Band and you will get the idea.

With his ten piece band which included his guitarist brother Chris, this was a spectacular show. His name appeared in lights at the back of the stage as he made his appearance to cries of “Peter, Peter” from his legions of fans. Without doubt, the stage set brought a touch of Las Vegas to Nottingham.

The whole show was about his fans as he interacted with them from the off. A bag of frozen peas was thrown at him; a female fan got onto the stage to demand a kiss and cheekily pinched his bum, whilst later on he invited six fans, two of them male, onto the stage and encouraged them to partake in a Greek dance in homage to his roots.

Andre has revamped his sound for this tour, changing his tune from pop hits to big band sounds. He also looked the part in a classic suit; looking very smart, which only complemented this new sophisticated style of music.

As well as putting a Big Band stamp on some of his classic hits such as Flavour, Andre also performed his version of Pharell William’s chart topper, Happy, Michael Jackson’s Human Nature, George Michael’s Careless Whisper and Stevie Wonder’s Sir Duke; with all tracks being brought to life with this big band arrangement.

Opening with songs from his latest album, Big Night, the flirtatious new tracks such as New Orleans, Just A Jam and Kid, stole the hearts of this predominately female audience as he danced provocatively across the stage. Encouraging the fans to dance along with him, there wasn’t a hint of any dad dancing from this father of three. Like Mr Buble, he is a sex symbol in the music industry and his performance set the temperatures rising, even though his parents were in the audience watching.

Performing an unexpected cover of Justin Timberlake’s Senorita and later John Legend’s Ordinary People, Andre provided unique crowd pleasing renditions of the contemporary classics. Having taunted the crowd earlier with a snippet of his great hit, Mysterious Girl, the song which everyone had been waiting for finally came, and was mixed into Bob Marley’s Stir It Up and Inner Circle’s Sweat, transforming the song into a reggae masterpiece.

It was a concert that will appeal far beyond his fan base and all credit to him for coming out of his comfort zone and pulling it off. As the title of one of his songs he performed said, This Is The Perfect Night and it was; it was an absolute triumph.