Josh T. Pearson @ The Barbican, London

Josh T Pearson certainly attracts a certain dress code: having already bumped into a few beards on my way in, once inside the random brown suit jackets seem to be everywhere - teamed with skinny black jeans, long hair and yes - more beards. Mind you, it perfectly sets the scene for the tunes about to unfold…

Two boy/girl duos start things off tonight: first there's Big Deal, who offer up some sludgy, grungey, dreamy shoe gaze; the female’s vocals lead beautifully, hazy and sweet over the males huskier softer tones. The second boy/girl duo are Weekend Death Rattle, featuring a female lead singer in red boots and fur coat. She plays the theramin while her male counterpart offers a slidey, dirty and deep guitar.

The third act are based around a young African American female singer, and are called Cold Specks: with a gorgeous strong, earthy and husky vocal range, she soars tonight, wrapping herself around the Barbican’s massive expanse brilliantly.

She is accompanied by a white English male playing rhythm on a black hollow body Gretsch with a slide that sounds stunning with it’s dark undercurrents. Together their melodic, lush, full bodied soul gives me visions of green fields flying by on a road trip.

Part one of the evening comes to a close with Richard Durrant, a solo artist with electric acoustic and mouth organ. Singing about the devil and blackbirds while playing deep chords, his voice has that Elvis quality of being a half mumble/croon.

Eventually Josh T Pearson takes the stage centre under a blue light, whinging sarcastically about the "dive" venue he’s in. We all chuckle and he thanks us for coming and being so good looking.

Tonight it's just him and his guitar, echoing melodies out to us, strong but light and sweet then deep and urgent all at once. His beard and his voice speak from somewhere real, melancholic and beautifully sad.

His fingers move fast and rhythmically over the strings, finger picking almost like a flamenco guitarist, building up to a moment, then dropping off suddenly. There’s silver finger picks on his fingers, that make all the strokes so clear and crisp with such beauty. What's more, you can see his cowboy boots stiff under his leg bottoms, emulating a true country gentleman.

His crowd chatter is excellent tonight. "Thank you all for comin’", he says. "It’s been a long tour and a long life." Then later, we even get a joke: "What’s the difference between a large pizza and a musician?’
‘A large pizza can feed a family’". There is goofy laughing in between by Josh. "You have to deal with our pain!" he demands. In a funny old way, we do. x