Shania Twain @ OVO Hydro, Glasgow, 14 Sep

Shania Twain’s band take to the stage and begin playing the opening bars of Waking Up Dreaming, a rallying Springsteen-inflected anthem from the singer’s latest record Queen of Me. A roving spotlight swoops around the arena, eventually picking out Twain at the back of the room. 'Tonight we’re making our way to Mars', she sings as she slinks through her fans. This performance at Glasgow’s Hydro is the first European date on Twain’s Queen of Me Tour – and it means a great deal to the 10,000 lively Twainiacs in attendance.

There was a time when it looked likely that Shania Twain would never tour again. Just weeks after completing a worldwide stadium tour in 2003, Twain contracted Lyme disease and was left with no singing voice. The slow process of rebuilding her voice meant that she did not perform live for 15 years. What followed was a stint at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, a theatrical show which included a section where she rode a horse on stage, performing dressage to the music. The point is this: Shania Twain is not just any old performer. She takes the silliness of the whole thing seriously, and tonight's show is all the better for it.

Dressed in a rhinestone denim mini dress embroidered with references to her songs, Twain starts the show with high energy favourites Up! and Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You), before disappearing and re-emerging on a horse-shaped chrome motorcycle to sing I’m Gonna Getcha Good!  

Twain tells the crowd that her outfit for the evening started life as a patchwork jean jacket sent to her by fan. “You could say I Shania-ed it,” she laughs before reaching for an acoustic guitar and playing the unforgettable power ballad You’re Still the One. Her previous vocal problems seem almost unbelievable now given her range and power.

For newer tracks, such as fun foot stomper Giddy Up!, Twain teaches the crowd the chorus during a call-and-response section. The song is the first in a solid run of country numbers. Early career highlights Any Man of Mine and Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under? (a song she introduces as “a real shit-kicker”) go down particularly well. Later, Twain divides the crowd for three-part harmonies for Honey I’m Home and is characteristically, well, unimpressed by the efforts of the floor section: “You guys are the problem child tonight.”

Audience participation is an important feature of the show, which is spiked with instances of it. During first dance wedding favourite From This Moment On, Twain invites a few couples on stage with her. She introduces the room to backing singer and Glasgow native Paul Michael Clark, who duets with her on Party For Two and gets a hometown hero’s welcome from the audience. In a segment which is surely a direct lift from her Vegas show, Twain reads a tweet written by a teenage fan named Matty who was worried about attending the show alone. Matty identifies himself in the crowd and is ushered on stage for a selfie with Shania. “No one is alone here,” Twain reminds him. If this stuff sounds a bit corny that’s because it… sort of is? But that’s the whole point. Twain’s dedication to her fans gives the show a warmth that could be easily lost in the tour’s expensive production values – think CGI backdrops, tap dancers, that horse motorcycle.

Her second costume change of the evening occurs for the encore. Twain reappears dressed in the iconic leopard print look made famous in the video for That Don’t Impress Me Much. When she reveals that she is wearing the actual outfit from the music video, the crowd practically explodes. To see not only one icon this evening, but two? It’s a lot to take in. “Let’s go, Glasgow!” she shouts after a riff so legendary it feels like a glittery call to arms, Twain closes the show with the feel-good powerhouse that is Man! I Feel Like a Woman!