Live Review

Whilst The Libertines knock about the idea of reforming as if it were some sort of company HR project (Well have to sit down and see if we can do something in 2011), there is a new order of talent speaking to their audience. Five years after Carl and Petes divorce came through, and with the UK deep in recession, the voices of the credit crunch generation are not theirs.

At an established forefront alongside Tinchy, Florence and Dizzee is an unlikely lad from Wimbledon called Jamie Treays. Jamie Ts first album, 2007s Panic Prevention, was a masterclass in urban poetry, street beats and backchat. A collection of south London parables put together in his bedroom, Panic Prevention was as good a contemporary perspective on life in urban Britain as anything recorded in the past decade.

With his slurs and errs and a half-done gram, this skinny little white runt with head lice played and rapped and squeaked and sang his way to a 2007 Mercury Music Award nomination for Panic Prevention. Along with a heavily rotated radio edit of Sheila and knowing nods to his abilities from Radio 1s Jo Whiley and Zane Lowe amongst others, the then 21-year-old was making it big. The prize ultimately went to The Klaxons for their debut record Myths Of The Near Future (insert own sarcastic observation on the enduring appeal of awards winners).

For Jamie T, however, live performances were still a little underwhelming. At gigs, he seemed nervous and the live retellings of his witty tales of London life were urgent and hurried, sometimes at near double speed and all too disposable. The baseball cap drawn low over his eyes suggested Jamie wasnt as ready for the limelight as his music insisted he should be. Not that his obvious talent was in any way diminished.

Nearly three years later and now 24 (and two weeks happy birthday), Jamie T is belatedly touring his second album, 2009s Kings & Queens. This followed the eventual postponement of his entire UK and European tour towards the end of last year due to a bout of laryngitis. Tonights Manchester Academy show has been rescheduled from October and the venue feels a little under capacity even though the original date had sold out.

Jamie is gracious about the delay without gushing about the love and patience of The Fans as so many might and even saves a few (very) choice words for a good-natured heckler, evidently a gentleman of larger proportions. Jamie T is a young man of no little humour and that comes through loud and clear in his work, as well as his caustic put-downs.

The set opens at pace with The Mans Machine, Earth Wind and Fire, and 368 all taken from the second LP. In stark contrast to those nervy early shows, the music comes to life when performed live. The hugely popular So Lonely Was The Ballad from Panic Prevention follows and, despite the engaging brilliance of the record, the live version is on a different level - music in 3D.

Tonights gig is being recorded for Zane Lowes Radio 1 show and some of those listening in to Pacemaker may hear a little (just a little) of Joe Strummer in Jamie T and someone in the crowd nearby can be heard to remark as much. Four minutes later and right on cue, under the glare of a single spotlight and armed only with an acoustic bass guitar, Jamie finishes Back In The Game with a line or two from The Clashs I Fought The Law. Really.

Operation, If You Got The Money and, later, Sheila complete extracts from the first record. The set closes on British Intelligence taken from Kings & Queens. The three song encore Spiders Web, Chaka Demus and Sticks n Stones also come from the second album and all are sung word for word by the 1,000-plus crowd.

There are very few artists that sound like Jamie T does. Authentic and edgy, bursting with talent and with a glint in his eye, he writes lines that stick in the mind. Clever, cunning, quotable couplets that make you smile and at the same time think: Where does he get this stuff?

An evening in Jamie Ts company is, in his own words, all-thriller-no-filler. Time spent running with the believers. What you sow, man, is what you reap.

Quite.