ORRIGHT Glasgow. A city's favourite musical sons last night made their

return from far-flung foreign exile (or South Queensferry anyway).

''Great to be back home,'' Jim Kerr told us. Glasgow went spare. First,

however, we witnessed the essentially Glaswegian Silences who work very

hard at being a speeded up Simple Minds. Durable, solid, Clyde-built, a

bit less than radical. Glasgow lapped it up.

Simple Minds initially functioned far too much as a slowed down

version of Simple Minds. On record they have of late abandoned cool

European inflections for couthy Celtic roots. Live, they were a bit of

nameless state at times, especially ponderous and platitudinous on their

newer material. Glasgow lapped it up nevertheless. Honorable fellows who

believe in the power of this rock thing to effect all manner of change

for good, the Minds seem now to be changing in reaction to a musical

agenda set by other pacesetters. Comparisons with the Waterboys and the

Proclaimers become increasingly invidious.

Intermittent Glasgow audience rapture oughtn't to blind Simple Minds

to their shortcomings, their lack of direction, their lack of real

control. Quieter quaisi-folkie bits with accordions and fiddles sit

strangely in a stadium setting; the transition from big urban rock to

small rural hoedown is a poor one to be forced to make.

The old edgy, slightly neurotic stuff buoyed things up, at the same

time highlighting the thinness of the new stuff. The mechanical Eurobeat

of Waterfront was particularly dandy but where to now, what's the point?

In a roundabout way Jim Kerr answered the question himself. ''If

anybody here is thinking of starting a rock 'n' roll band we've got a

message for you -- go for it,'' he shouted. I will, Jim, I will, with

Messrs Vega and Pop as my patron saints and ''stay mysterious, don't

preach and don't follow leaders,'' as my composite motto -- that and

''autodestruct after three seminal LPs.''

Glasgow is easily pleased. For their own long term good Simple Minds

shouldn't be.