Gig played on 22/07/05

You turn up expecting it to be ridiculous. That's part of the appeal of Lenny Kravitz, after all. He's a grooving, preening, superfly cabaret act, more like a visit to the funk soul nutter section of Madame Tussauds than a proper artist. This isn't music to cherish, it's hip-swinging, cool-blitzing entertainment. It's an OutKast video played for laughs, it's the legacy of everyone from James Brown and George Clinton right up to Prince and Liberace trashed in the name of second hand thrills and a boozy, amiably mindless night out. You knew that. That's why you're here.

But even so, you didn't expect this. If Lenny Kravitz doesn't have someone on the payroll whose sole responsibility is to applaud the man's every move and utterance then, goddamn, he's missing a trick. Because he loves adoration like no-one else on the planet. And he doesn't care who knows it. When he appears at the start of the show in a long black cape and throws his arms open to the crowd, he doesn't just milk the applause, he squeezes every last drop of love and devotion from its quivering, worthless form and then tosses it aside, already moving on to score more high pitched worship.

Everything but everything about tonight's show is about fuelling the Kravitz ego, an out of control entity bellowing "feed me" like the killer pot plant in "The Little Shop Of Horrors". When the guitarist or the sax player takes a solo, Kravitz is right in there, getting involved, catching all of the whoops and hollers, sucking them up and beaming like a maniac. He plays every song as if it's the show's last - usually this is meant as a compliment, but in this case it means a never-ended cavalcade of false-endings, stirring crescendos and - cue audience - high energy applause.

A decade ago we would have dismissed this as crass and rather laughable. Today, in the era of post-Coldplay lethargy, we embrace it because it's crass and rather laughable. At last - some genuine showbiz nonsense. So what if there isn't an original note played tonight? "It Ain't Over Til It's Over" may well have single-handedly invented Lemar with its Fauxtown purr, but it's still irresistible. The Beatles-eque "Let Love Rule" even manages to crowbar in another glaring influence, with purple lighting and an intro that might as well have run "Dearly beloved..." in the vein of "Purple Rain".

Strip away the pomp and charming bluster and there's yet more pomp and charming bluster underneath. Although the soul grooves are a vital part of the persona, Kravitz is happiest being a bar room rocker - Meatloaf stuck inside the body of the Cat from "Red Dwarf". Songs like "Where Are We Runnin'?" and "Dig In" are all about grease and cheap beer, equal parts ZZ Top and Bryan Adams, nothing too challenging to get in the way of the ego-fest. If anything, Kravitz is simply a low fat, healthy living alternative to the decadent pleasures of rock's past - not so much Meatloaf, then, as Maltloaf.

But it's fun, just as you thought it would be - 100 per cent rock cheese slavered over every cliché going. "Fly Away" is superb. A slow, serious, almost psychedelic one called "Fields Of Joy", where Kravitz strives desperately to be thoughtful and worthwhile, kills the momentum flat dead, just as it should do. And "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" is immense, gloriously dumb, hugely invigorating. He's probably still there now, lapping up the applause. May this be one ego that never ever comes down.

by Ian Watson