Michael McDonald is best known for his fabulous voice, a fine-grained manifestation of blue-eyed soul that can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Before such solo hits as I Keep Forgettin' and Sweet Freedom, McDonald helped create the Doobie Brothers' finest moments: You Belong to Me (co-written with Carly Simon and recently covered by Jennifer Lopez), Takin' It to the Streets. Now, after a few years in obscurity, he's back with a major label and a so-so album of Motown covers.

This is a smart move, for it means that McDonald's live repertoire is a non-stop party of hits from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Surely you can't go wrong with songs as fantastic as Stevie Wonder's I Believe and All in Love Is Fair, not to mention sublime McDonald originals such as What a Fool Believes? Well, yes you can when you add cliched grandstanding, a lighting rig that would be too kitsch for Kylie and a sound mix that often transforms McDonald's voice into a well-tempered foghorn.

Despite the odd cool moment when Pat Coil's Hammond B3 organ swirls around McDonald's gutsy piano, the band's rocky bombast overpowers classics such as I Heard It Through the Grapevine and What's Going On. McDonald welcomes a procession of guests, including Lulu (for Ain't No Mountain High Enough and Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing), Jaki Graham (On My Own Again) and pianist Toby Baker.

The lighting crew bathe the set in every combination of colour and strobe, and the sound guys crank up the volume. Why the lack of confidence? The audience loves these songs and they love the way McDonald sings them. And his is an intimate art, all too easily trampled by the bland orthodoxies of globalised pop.