NAO @ Saint Luke's, Glasgow, 8 Mar

NAO brings her latest album Jupiter to Glasgow, with audience members-turned-backup dancers helping the show end on a high

Live Review by Tara Hepburn | 12 Mar 2025
  • NAO

The stage at Saint Luke’s is covered in a pink wildflower installation. The flowers frame the instruments, a small staircase and a column of white fabric which ripples and shimmers in the middle of it all. Techs move on and off the stage while audience members queue for drinks and jostle for position near the front. The lights dip, the band file on and immediately kick off with the soft synthy grooves of Wildflowers. The fabric drops to reveal NAO standing centre stage. The singer’s sweet vocals make light work of the feelgood R'n'B opener. Lights bounce off the disco ball, sending twinkly lights onto the dance party which is taking place on the floor.

There is a lot of goodwill for NAO among the audience. Most of the crowd have followed the singer-songwriter’s career since So Good, her 2014 debut EP, and a few even have tickets to every night of this UK tour. The tour is a welcome return to the stage for the London singer who was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome four years ago and feared she may never tour again. In one of a few chatty sections during the show, NAO levels with the audience about how this upheaval affected her, forcing her to slow down and appreciate the present moment. This confessional spirit infuses many of the songs on her latest record Jupiter, such as the diaristic and soaring 30 Something which sees NAO in a domestic setting: 'Dishes in the kitchen, yeah, my sleep ain't getting better / And I love my baby daughter, sometimes motherhood’s whatever'.

Many of the show’s highlights are pulled from the new record, such as the delightful Happy People, a sunny Afrobeat song which NAO tells the audiences is about “finding your tribe”. The song speaks to the upbeat, connected energy in the room. When she sings the track’s refrain, 'I found my people / Living like happy people', it really resonates. The rock-inflected Bad Blood, from 2016's For All We Know, takes the audience somewhere else entirely, head-banging to pitch-perfect electric guitar.

Another high point is Elevate, which NAO makes the most of by sectioning the room like a school choir (the singer previously taught music lessons, and it shows), dividing the room up to sing three-part harmonies. The arrangement proves successful in the pre-song rehearsal but is broadly abandoned once the song is actually underway. It’s better to leave these things to the professionals.

NAO clearly likes getting involved with the audience. It’s a detail which she really leans into during the show’s encore. A roving spotlight picks her out on the venue’s balcony, side by side with fans as she performs the yearning Another Lifetime from 2018's Saturn. From the same record, she closes the show with the hypnotically danceable Drive and Disconnect, which she performs while drifting back to the stage through the dancing crowd, encouraging them to follow her; closing out the show with 15 smiling backup dancers, it's a fittingly sociable ending to such a good vibes night.

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