Tuesday, 27 May 2008

Sam Sparro, Night and Day, Manchester

Sam Sparro's trademark is his Joe 90 spectacles, which somehow manage to stay on his sweat-soaked head despite some hyperactive dancing. He throws signed T-shirts into the crowd and - pointing at his sodden garments - tells Manchester that he's "never sweated so much before". "Off! Off! Off!" cry dozens of screaming girls, who are not going to let the fact that the 25-year-old LA-based singer is gay, Christian and wearing a frankly appalling shirt stop them hailing him a sex bomb.












However, it is impossible not to be bowled over by the man at the front of the stage. He has both a Gil Scott-Heron rasp and the kind of incredible falsetto that is normally a result of faulty underwear or being Prince. His music sounds like a turbocharged amalgam of Daft Punk, Kraftwerk, Gossip, Earth, Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder. His disco beats come from a grinning female drummer who plays while poking the bassist's bottom with her drumsticks. Together with shimmering keyboards and at least one daft hat, they create an instant party vibe: Ibiza in Oldham Street.

Sparro delivers the biggest tunes from his eponymous debut: 21st Century Life with its instant hookline, and Sick with its declaration that we are sick and he will be our medicine. The specs come off and he poses for girls' camera phones, before the entire audience sings his shimmering hit Black and Gold, an electronic odyssey that ponders God's existence and humanity's place in a universe of twinkling stars. It does not take any kind of glasses to see that he will be big all around the planet.

· At The Place I Love, Birmingham, on Saturday. Then touring. Details: O2wirelessfestival.com




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