Ian McNabb

Ian McNabb plays Cottiers on Thursday 26 November, with the show starting at 7:30pm. He's the Mercury-nominated former frontman of The Icicle Works, and he'll be performing as a solo act.

If you're not familiar with the name, McNabb first made his mark in the early eighties. He formed The Icicle Works in 1981 with Chris Sharrock on drums and Chris Layhe on bass and vocals, and they became part of the Liverpool renaissance of that decade, alongside Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and The La's. Signed to Beggars Banquet, they scored a UK Top 20 hit with 'Love Is A Wonderful Colour' and international success with 'Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)', which remains McNabb's highest-charting US single. The band split in 1988, and from there he moved into a solo career.

Since then, he's worked with producer Ian Broudie, whose Lightning Seeds records became huge, and released a string of self-financed solo albums on his own Fairfield Records imprint. One of those, Head Like A Rock (1993), earned him a Mercury nomination. In 2009, he wrote an autobiography, Merseybeast, which gained cult status and was later released as an audiobook narrated by him. His most recent album, Star, Smile, Strong (2025), brought back Icicle Works drummer Chris Sharrock.

Tickets are £26.11, which includes the booking fee. The gig is at Cottiers Theatre, 93-95 Hyndland St, Glasgow G11 5PU, on Thursday 26 November at 7:30pm.