"You f**kin' up for it," blurts handsome young Ed Harcourt at his keyboards, six songs in, "or what?"
The answer's a yes, but with qualifications. From the burnished-bright harmonics and 'Sgt. Pepper'-meets-'OK Computer' calliope whirl of 'All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed' and lilting 'Hanging With The Wrong Crowd' through the squeedling-guitared 'Ghost Writer' and twinkling piano of 'Something In My Eye' - which one of the well-spoken young men in Withnail mufflers around me pronounces "just as good as 'Yellow'" to his well-spoken young mates - we're all pleased as punch.
Of course, being strictly accurate, "f**kin' up for it" isn't quite the confrontationally unpredictable vibe here, given that Harcourt has already been too endearing and too well-bred for anything like being up for it in a "f**kin'" kinda way. He's frowned worriedly and then smiled when his mic is finally turned on. Distributed Jaffa cakes to cheering partisans and sung an impromptu ditty for mobile phone users. Apologised in case he's caused offense, and then - "f**kin' up for it" rather awkwardly demanded - launched with his crack sessioneers into a trumpet-annointed 'Beneath The Heart Of Darkness' that rocks out with the kind of controlled, precise rockout that crack sessioneers inevitably provide.
Dangerous, then, isn't really the word: in the long line of music that wouldn't exist without Jeff Buckley lighting the touchpaper and Thom Yorke's lot adding ferocious post-grunge dynamics and creeping millennial dis-ease, our Ed carries the torch on the Coldplay end of things, all major chords and nice-young-man-ness. The talent behind the songs is undeniable and the presentation -- all polyvalent, genre-shifting ability - peerless, of course. And, zooming through the Duane Eddy guitar and standup bass of 'He's Building A Swamp' that suggests a Home Counties Calexico, through the wheezing organs and powdery Prefab Sprout harmonies of 'Jetsetter' to the sunburst joy of 'Watching The Sun Come Up' with its determined "it all could happen if I want it to" mantra, Ed and his band deliver a very fine set indeed.
But if there's anything missing, you'll find it in the nagging awareness of another more risk-taking strain from the Jeff Buckley heritage that Harcourt's closest point of comparison, Hawksley Workman - similar falsetto-soaring vocal talents and musical panache, but a quantum leap more charisma and instinctively fearless eccentricity -inhabits from head to irresistible toe.
In fact, you only notice the absence when Ed, at set's end, serves up tonight's first really incautious performance with a roiling, excessive, thrilling 'I've Become Misguided', which revels unapologetically in that much-noted Tom Waits obsession which otherwise seems so at odds with the dominant prettiness and politesse. Throw in a bold, boiling 'Shanghai', and you'll find yourself left with a tantalising hint of what Workman almost always delivers from his tightrope-walker's dance on the edge of (going completely off) the rails, and handsome young Ed Harcourt - "f**kin' up for it" or no - doesn't quite. Though you suspect that with a little less caution, it really all could happen if he wanted it to.
