Aziz @ Bedford Arms, London

The backroom of The Bedford Arms is decked out like a Glastonbury tent, all dappled light spots and coloured canopies. The reverential hush of the punters suggests we are about to witness something special as we await former Stone Roses guitarist Aziz to showcase music from his Lahore to Longsight album. Together with tabla player Dalbir Singh Rattan, Aziz merges proggy guitar solos with bhangra beats to make, as he calls it, “Asian Blues”.

He immediately gives the crowd a jolt as he twangs his glowing pink guitar to create a screaming wall of Arabic-influenced wailing. With his huge deck of effects pedals, Aziz unlocks his guitar to reveal whole synth and string sections, using them to heap layer upon layer of psychedelic loops and reverb.

Equally impressive is Rattan’s drumming ability. Myth has it that the tabla came from a bigger drum accidentally split in two, and according to the Hindi pun, “when it broke, it still spoke”. After tuning the instrument with a tiny hammer, Rattan hits the smaller drum and tinkles bells across it, and forces the larger drum with the palm of his hand to create a womping, undulating bass noise. At times the sound he creates is closer in tempo to house music than blues. “Now you can see why I sacked the rest of the band”, says Aziz.

Both Aziz and Rattan are totally synchronised. With his complete mastery of the instrument, whether making a drum n’ bass hook from feedback or playing guitar with his teeth Hendrix-style, it’s easy to see why people thought Aziz could replace John Squire.

However, with the evening taking the shape of a free-form master class and no stand-out singles, there is little more for the casual observer to latch onto than unbridled talent.