The 20-year-old former student at Bearsden's Boclair Academy won a £60,000 recording contact in January after beating 50 other singer songwriters at the Orange Unsigned Act event.

He recorded his first single on the back of this, called Gimme a Call, which charted at number 14.

The acoustic guitar-strumming songwriter describes his music as "pop with folk influences" and admits to being nervous about playing at the Homecoming Live — The Final Fling this Saturday, November 28.

It will bring together Scots from across the globe for a one-off reunion in Glasgow's SECC.

Tommy, who lives in Torrance, said: "I am opening the stage up and will be followed by Midge Ure and Deacon Blue. It will be mad and crazy. I'm pretty excited, but have mixed emotions as I'm quite nervous as well. It is going to be a really big room. It will be the biggest one I've done so far."

After leaving school, Tommy went to Glasgow University to study electronics and music, but was more interested in writing and singing.
The self-taught musician admits: "There was a lot of physics involved in the course and that didn't really interest me. My interests are in performing."

So the gifted young artist took the brave decision to jack-in the course and set about writing and performing, committing himself to writing a new song every week.

One minute he was struggling to get 20 people to come and see one of his performances at a Glasgow pub. The next he was doing sold-out tours across Scotland and packing out London's Proud Galleries.

His big breakthrough came with the release of Gimme a Call earlier this year followed by his second single, Jacket. This didn't do so well nationally as it coincided with the death of Michael Jackson so got less publicity, but it was still the top selling Scottish single.

For tickets call Ticketmaster on 08444 999 990 or ticketSOUP on 0844 395 4000 or log onto www.ticketsoup.com or www.ticketmaster.co.uk.
For Tommy's national tour dates and more information on the singer, go to www.myspace.com/tommyreillymusic.