This was, Jack told us, mopping sweat from his brow, “by far the maddest gig of the whole tour”. With infectious energy, an arresting stage presence, and a pair of crazed eyes that screamed serial killer, Peñate delivered a performance that swept a hitherto restrained crowd into a rapturous frenzy. The night, however, had not begun so well.

Two hours earlier, the lights had dimmed, the audience fallen silent, and a squat fat man appeared from stage left. He played with some wires and then waddled back off. Five minutes later, Wild Beasts emerged to a tangibly tame reception, despite their name promising a leonine roar of a voice and dance moves that would turn heads in the jungle. The reality was a hyena-laughable disappointment.

Juxtaposed against this, Jack stormed the stage with such an overwhelming, energy-infused spectacle that nobody had time to pause and consider that he perhaps didn’t have the songs to back it up. While fast-paced and lively, his lyrics are sometimes worryingly emo. His heartstrings are even plucked at the prospect of catching a train (My eyes, eyes, eyes, are not dry, dry, dry he tells us in Torn at the Platform). Elsewhere, he laments she never wanted me (Second, Minute, or Hour), and the concert concluded on a similarly sombre note, with the song When We Die. Yet despite the subject-matter, Jack Peñate’s style is not going to leave you sobbing into the speakers. One member of the audience threw his fizzing can of Red Stripe onto the stage in a fit of ecstasy; and another member cast aloft his shoe, the jubilation wiped off his face only when someone stamped on his foot.

Few will be provoked to throw missiles at their hi-fis, but add in the writhing lunatic behind the guitar, and it proved a very special night indeed.

Four Stars

Tom Bird & Julia Tilley