Glenn Hughes/Sophie Lloyd - Glasgow Garage 25th October 2025

There are perhaps some comparisons to be drawn between rock legend Glenn Hughes and Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street. Both built their reputations as being something a bit different and special in days gone by before a slump in fortunes led to some years of neglect and decline. But whilst the famously long Glaswegian street is still very much in the middle of a facelift and revival attempt, the “Voice of Rock” has steadily continued to rise from the ashes of his 1970s heyday to enjoy a well-deserved late career renaissance, with arguably some of his best recordings, particularly in a solo sense, happening over the last 25 years. So, there’s something quite poetic about Hughes’ latest solo tour, The Chosen Years, rolling into a venue in Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night. Two institutions, keen to show that they still have a lot to offer.

Hughes is incredibly grateful to be in The Garage with his band. One thing the now 74-year-old has is class and a disarming humbleness, never taking his audience for granted and always ready to give his best as a thank you to those who continue to support him in the sunset years of his career. During The Chosen Years tour, Hughes wanted to celebrate his career from its beginnings with Trapeze, right up to the present day and his most recent solo album, the brilliant Chosen. With music from other bands and projects such as Deep Purple, Hughes/Thrall and Black Country Communion also ready to be thrown into the mix, there was potential for it to be a truly memorable night in Glasgow.

For every rock legend approaching the final stops of their illustrious career journey, there’s a new breed of rockstar fighting to be seen and heard, ready to have their own shot at superstardom. Hotshot guitarist Sophie Lloyd is one such artist, seizing the opportunity with her support slot to continue a recent upward trajectory that has seen her release an EP and debut album, perform live shows and find time to be a touring guitarist with Machine Gun Kelly’s band. More recently, she performed at the Women’s Rugby World Cup Final at Twickenham Stadium, London in front of 82,000 people and an estimated TV audience of 5.8 million at its peak! With a band that included Marisa Rodriguez of Marisa and the Moths fame on vocals and Lloyd’s husband Chris Painter on drums, the guitarist wowed the Glasgow crowd from the outset with a mesmerising display of high energy, technical musicianship. Arriving onstage to the Top Gun theme before entering into a blistering set of hard rock that included instrumentals, originals from her own catalogue and some well-chosen covers, Lloyd showed that she is the real deal and very possibly the heir apparent to be the next true Queen of Hard Rock. She’s helping to keep our favourite music genre alive, so buy tickets to her live shows and support her music by buying her EPs, albums and merch. Sophie Lloyd isn’t just the future of rock - she’s the present!

Glenn Hughes bounded onstage with an energy that matched that of much younger peers. You see, playing live onstage is where Hughes is comfortable. It’s where he truly comes alive, surrounded by positive energy that drives him to be the best he can be. Hughes believes that a much higher power put him on this Earth to spread love and peace through his music and to be honest, I think there’s something in that. Flanked by longtime guitarist and collaborator Soren Andersen and drummer Ash Sheehan, Hughes wasted no time in expelling some energy with the hard rock/funk hybrid of the high-octane ‘Soul Mover’, arguably one of the songs that started his late career renaissance 25 years ago from the album of the same name. The moody ‘Muscle and Blood’, with its memorable guitar riff intro and driving bass from the underrated 1982 Hughes/Thrall album, acted as a reminder of just how big that short-lived project could’ve been if things had worked out differently, with Hughes’ voice soaring across the venue with the power of a singer half his age. On this early promise, the Glaswegian crowd was in for a memorable night.

We all love the classic songs - the songs that take us back to a special or happier time in life. But Hughes is still a recording artist, refusing to simply rely on past endeavours and that was clear on his latest solo release Chosen. So, naturally there would be some tracks from that album, the first being the hard rocking, yet funky ‘Voice in my Head’, with Hughes’ prominent bass dictating the song’s tempo. Then, of course, there’s the great music Hughes recorded with the supergroup Black Country Communion, represented by the brilliant ‘One Last Soul’, with Andersen and Sheehan channelling their inner Joe Bonamassa and Jason Bonham respectively. This song seemed to really connect with the Glasgow audience, which makes it ever more of a shame that the band didn’t tour more in Scotland, with only one show that I can remember (and I still have the t-shirt that no longer fits!).

The next track was a special one for me, as ‘Can’t Stop the Flood’ was the song that really started me out on my journey to explore Glenn Hughes’ music when I heard it on the live recording Soulfully Live in the City of Angels. I was transported back to the first time I heard that album, when I had an impressive head of blonde hair and a waistline that allowed me to see my feet! Music really is a time and place thing and I thank Hughes, Andersen and Sheehan for allowing me to enjoy that little bit of nostalgia with a brilliant performance of the song. Then, it was back to the Hughes/Thrall album with the ‘First Step of Love’, an atmospheric yet driving rock song where Hughes and his bass take centre stage. 

Hughes transported us all the way back to the beginning, over 50 years ago, to some music by Trapeze with the funky ‘Way Back to the Bone’ (that was a pre-curser to some of the music he’d later record with Deep Purple) and the epic ‘Medusa’, that he later re-recorded with Black Country Communion. Musically, Hughes has very much moved on since his days in Trapeze but he’s still clearly very comfortable in that funk/soul groove of their music, as it’s the origins of his musical DNA. However, it couldn’t sound any different from the much darker, heavier music he created with Black Sabbath legend Tony Iommi on the Fused album in 2005, represented on this tour by ‘Grace’ and ‘Dopamine’. This album was criminally underrated on its release, possibly due to the rock and hard rock trends of the time but received a well-deserved re-release last year that has given it a new lease of life. In Glasgow, Glenn Hughes further proved the merits of that music with a powerful run through of the two muscular sounding tracks. Brilliant stuff indeed.

The title track of the Chosen album is another modern, driving, polished heavy melodic rock song that transferred well into a live environment, whilst the groovy and funky ‘You are the Music’ brought some fun to proceedings, with the kind of shuffling and bopping in the crowd that Sauchiehall Street hasn’t seen since flared trousers and flowery shirts were in fashion. Hughes finished the main set with ‘Stay Free’, one of the newer Black Country Communion tracks from the band’s 2024 album, V. 

With time tight due to The Garage turning into “a fucking disco” (Hughes’ words!) at 10pm, Hughes couldn’t leave the stage prior to the encore. Alone with an acoustic guitar in hand, he performed an emotional and spine-tingling ‘Coast to Coast’, his voice faultless throughout before being joined again by Sorensen, Sheehan and Sophie Lloyd for the frantic finale, a barnstorming run-through of the Deep Purple classic ‘Burn’. It really was the only song that could end the set, as it still bristles with a power and energy that can blow the roof off venues, which is testament to the masterful songwriting within that version of the legendary band. It was an explosive ending to a wonderful evening of live music, in the presence of musical greatness. 

As I headed outside into a cold autumn evening in Glasgow, I was acutely aware that I’d just experienced something incredibly special. It was a kind of communion (not of a Black Country type!) with like-minded people, all there to celebrate the monumental career of a bona fide rock legend whose music has excited, calmed and healed in equal measure for over 50 years. Glenn Hughes is a special artist; soulful, funky, groovy… yet still the epitome of everything that is hard rock over the last half century. He is the energy and the soul of real, honest, rock n roll.

He is Glenn Hughes. He is the “Voice of Rock” and as the man himself said before leaving the Glasgow stage… “music is the healer”.