Seasick Steve @ The Liquid Room

It's the middle of August but the endless sheets of apocalyptic rain are giving the capital an eerily biblical air. Inside the Liquid Room, the feeling that things are weirdly out of joint is enhanced by the entrance on stage of a gnarled figure, his faded Indian ink tattoos and depression-issue denim dungarees making him look like an escapee from the pages of the Grapes of Wrath. This is Seasick Steve – hobo bluesman extraordinaire, and winner of the year's most unlikely crowd-puller award. His sudden elevation from obscurity to near-ubiquity at awards ceremonies and festivals has obviously come as much a surprise to him as others. He admits as much several times during the set, which there is nothing complicated about; he gurns, he twinkles, he stomps and he moans. He thrashes his beat-up collection of guitars and he hollers the blues with untamed gusto. It's hardly original, but in today's musical landscape Steve's incongruity is strangely comforting. [Duncan Forgan]