The irresistible rise of Girls Aloud hit another peak when the former TV talent-show queens played the first of two riotous sold-out nights in Glasgow. Having recently notched up their eighteenth consecutive Top Ten hit since their formation in 2002, the record-breaking quintet launched their biggest tour to date, basking in the rare twin suns of mass commercial appeal and critical credibility.

They opened the show in promisingly high-camp style, hovering high above the stage on invisible wires, like a squadron of angels. The lively crowd, mostly gaggles of young women and pre-teenage girls accompanied by dutiful dads, greeted them like all-conquering goddesses.

There were many more dads than mums, in fact. How thoughtful of them to sacrifice an evening at home to endure the tiresome spectacle of five leggy pop supermodels dressed in skimpy basques.

The songs varied wildly in quality. While upbeat belters, including Girl Overboard and Fling, tapped into the hedonistic rush of classic gay disco, too much of the set felt graceless and flat. The laboured raunch of Love Machine and Sound of the Underground clomped along with the mechanical clatter of bored lap dancers, while the 1940s jazz-dance number during Can't Speak French was pure Royal Variety Performance.

Pausing to shower the Glasgow crowd with false flattery, as they will do at every stop on this long tour, the Girls proved soullessly professional to a tee. Despite being forever hailed as appealingly spiky characters, the famous five could easily have been interchangeable Stepford androids. The troubled footballer's wife Cheryl Cole occasionally assumed frontwoman duties, but otherwise there was little to distinguish between band members in terms of voice or personality. It was the bland leading the blondes.

Midway through the set, a vast steel walkway descended from the roof, forming a bridge from the stage to a podium at the back of the venue. Now sporting mini-dresses the colour of fruit salads, the Girls ambled across in a line to perform a clutch of slushy ballads, including Whole Lotta History. Alas, there were few further moments of grand theatre to buoy up the rest of this show. Falling back on pure music and charisma, Girls Aloud proved oddly deficient in both. Their cover of Salt-N-Pepa's saucy rap classic Push It was admittedly an inspired touch, but their botched assault on Aerosmith's Walk This Way was a cacophonous dog's dinner. Even as a living pub jukebox they seemed to struggle.

Girls Aloud have been adopted as a cause célèbre by highbrow cultural commentators keen to demonstrate that they are not biased against Topshop pop. No one needs an excuse to enjoy manufactured bubblegum pop, not even guilt-ridden indie-rock snobs. That said, though, no amount of grand theorising can elevate these ladies above their self-made status as deeply conservative pop product. In terms of sheer spectacle, this was an efficient and glitzy show, but low on personality or great tunes.

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