PinkPantheress @ SEC Centre, Glasgow, 23 May

Tonight's venue choice of the SEC Centre is an odd one. Yeah, that SEC Centre. Y’know, the one that quite clearly isn’t a gig venue. The one that at one point in the show PinkPantheress generously refers to as ‘unused’, but in reality is an exhibition space, one more accustomed to holding Ideal Home Shows, magic conferences and speeches by men in gilets about the possibility of marrying an Alexa.

It means that, as rooms go, it’s a weird one; with its usual stalls and demos removed it looks kind of like a vast, corporatised Barrowlands, minus the springy dancefloor, inbuilt atmosphere and even the vaguest nod to acoustics. It might work when you’re showing off the new Dyson, but if you’ve got the creator of some of the best sounding pop of the decade, you're going to struggle. What this entails is a kind of King Kong vs Godzilla situation. In the red corner, a young pop star at their supernova moment where they’ve scaled up their forward-thinking dance-pop so that it sounds great in the arenas and festival main stages they’re now accustomed to, and in the blue, a room with sound so bad that for stretches you can only really here the snares and the odd bit of sibilance.

Image: PinkPantheress @ SEC Centre, Glasgow, 23 May by Sara Christy

It’s a particular shame because PinkPantheress is on fantastic form. The songs are brilliant, obviously, but with the release of last year’s Fancy That and this ensuing tour, she’s levelled up her performance. It’s not just that things are on a grander scale – more dancers, costume changes and all that – but she's visibly more at ease with it all. Her voice is stronger, and she's better at balancing her relatable, down to earth persona and the demands of being a seamless pop star. It’s fed back in the room as well with a real warmth and goodwill towards her, Boy’s a liar getting the kind of reaction you only get from a beloved future classic, the singalong so feral and velociraptor-like that it puts most black metal bands to shame. Honestly, Darkthrone could never.

What really rankles is that when things align and the sound clears it’s fantastic. It’s mainly the most forceful of the bunch that can blast through, The aisle in particular is brilliant, a bouncy joy that sounds like a bunch of confetti landmines going off, while Girl Like Me loses none of its hurtling energy live. But unfortunately for the likes of Blue and Ophelia, anything delicate is getting totally lost in the rafters of this big daft shed. 

You can readily assume that in most other rooms this would be a barnstormer of a show, but placing PinkPantheress in the SEC Centre was a stinking booking decision and it’s left this gig wanting. But what is in no doubt is the quality of PinkPantheress as a bonafide pop star.