There are some gigs you go to for the music. Others are as much about the memories as they are the melodies.
A Marti Pellow homecoming in Glasgow was always going to be firmly in the second category.
Back in 1982, a bunch of talented Bankies (aka the good people of Clydebank) formed a band with big dreams and even bigger ambitions. It took a little time for Wet, Wet, Wet to find their feet, but once they did, they didn’t exactly tiptoe into the charts. They battered their way in.
Hit after hit followed, transforming four lads from the west of Scotland into one of the country’s biggest musical exports.
Success, however, came with a hefty price tag. Alongside the fame, fortune and screaming fans came Pellow’s very public battle with heroin addiction, a period that saw his struggles splashed across the newspapers. Looking back, Pellow himself described his addiction as “text book”, adding the sobering observation that “there’s no romantic side to heroin”.
Eventually, the seemingly unstoppable Wet, Wet, Wet machine ran out of road. The band split in May 1999, and Pellow set off on his own.
As it turned out, the story was far from over.
A meeting with Squeeze’s Chris Difford later that year resulted in the pair writing together, helping Pellow launch his solo career and eventually take his first solo tour on the road.
The rest, as they say, is history.
And so, 27 years later, the boy from Clydebank is back home in Glasgow… about 5 miles from home to be exact.
Pellow’s 2026 Summer Nights dates at Kelvingrove Bandstand have proved predictably popular, with every night sold out. It isn’t difficult to understand why. There aren’t many artists who can stroll onto a Glasgow stage carrying four decades of musical memories in their back pocket and expect thousands of people to instantly remember exactly where they were when they first heard the songs.
Kelvingrove Bandstand is the perfect setting for such an evening. Tucked into the park, it’s an atmospheric outdoor amphitheatre with the added excitement of weather roulette!
Tonight, thankfully, the weather gods were onside. Cool, dry and increasingly dark, it was just about perfect.
The evening began with a suitably local flavour. STV Radio DJs got things moving before a couple of local singers took to the stage, followed by Almost Angelic, featuring comedian Karen Dunbar and her partner.
Their irreverent take on familiar songs went down a storm, with plenty of laughs and even more audience participation. By the time they departed, the bandstand was packed and the crowd was primed.
Then came the main event.
At 8.45pm, Marti Pellow appeared – and judging by the reaction, you would have thought someone had just announced the return of free drink.
The audience was predominantly female, predominantly of a certain vintage and overwhelmingly enthusiastic. These weren’t people who had merely come to hear some old songs. They had come to revisit their youth.
There is something wonderfully unscientific about thousands of people being transported back several decades by the opening bars of a song. Add a few glasses of wine, old teenage crushes and memories of questionable hairstyles and fashion choices, and suddenly 2026 doesn’t seem quite so far removed from 1986.
Pellow kicked off with Bob Marley’s ‘Jammin’’. Quite why he decided to deliver it with a Jamaican accent is something we may never fully understand. Perhaps it made sense at the time.
It didn’t matter.
The crowd joined in and the party was underway.
Then came the songs everyone had been waiting for.
‘Wishing I Was Lucky’ and ‘Sweet Little Mystery’ immediately raised the temperature, followed by a procession of Wet, Wet, Wet favourites including ‘Sweet Surrender’ and ‘Angel Eyes’.
The formula was simple: give the crowd what it wants and let them do the rest.
And they did.
Eleven songs into the set, Pellow dipped into the covers catalogue, offering up Christopher Cross’s ‘Sailing’ before moving into The Beatles’ ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ – a song Wet, Wet, Wet would famously record themselves.
By now, the screaming had reached levels normally associated with either Beatlemania or someone giving away free prosecco.
As dusk settled over the park, the bandstand became a giant karaoke machine, only with a considerably better singer at the front.
Pellow’s mix of Wet, Wet, Wet classics and familiar covers kept the momentum rolling, while the audience did what Glaswegian audiences do best: sang loudly, danced enthusiastically and generally behaved as though tomorrow’s hangover was somebody else’s problem.
The encore was always going to be special.
First up was David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’, which detonated across the bandstand. It was a bold choice, but Pellow made it his own, transforming Bowie’s cool, polished pop classic into something considerably more Clydebank.
Then came the inevitable finale.
‘Love Is All Around’.
Originally recorded by The Troggs, the song has long since been claimed by Wet, Wet, Wet in the public consciousness. For an entire generation, mentioning the title is enough to trigger an involuntary mental image of Pellow, a microphone and the soundtrack to a thousand weddings, pubs, discos and nostalgic playlists.
Tonight, it was the perfect way to finish.
As the last notes disappeared into the Glasgow night, there was an unmistakable feeling that everyone had got exactly what they came for.
This wasn’t simply a concert. It was a two-hour trip down memory lane, complete with big choruses, old favourites and hundreds of people discovering that they still know almost every single word.
Pellow remains a natural performer, comfortable in front of his home crowd and clearly enjoying the connection that exists between him and these songs.
For many in attendance, Wet, Wet, Wet provided the soundtrack to their formative years. Tonight, Pellow reminded them that those memories haven’t gone anywhere.
They’ve just been waiting for the right chorus.
And judging by the noise from Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow wasn’t quite ready to let them go.
Those lucky enough to be here tomorrow night? They get to do it all again.
The rest of us will just have to find our old Wet, Wet, Wet CDs and pretend we’re 25 again.
Review & Photographs by John Brown Photography
