Live Performance Review: The Tallest Man On Earth, Saturday 27.10.2012, 19:00, H.M.V. Picturehouse, Edinburgh

(For information about the album the tour is in support of, 'There's No Leaving Now', please see the review written in June 2012.)

Support: Crooked Fingers; nothing to write home about.

The Tallest Man...was a sell out, which I had not anticipated. It appears as though he is more well known and liked than I had been aware of. There was a lot of younger people in the audience, who gave a typically young fevered reaction. The performance itself was quite something. The man is young, very charismatic, and is very skilled at guitar. He is quite a quirky performer, which added to the charm.

What I find odd is that there are songs that can definitely draw parallels in tone and vocal inflection with early Dylan, yet the young at the gig treated this with reassuring reverence, going so far as to get the older drinkers to shut up in the intro to songs. Also the fact that he is Swedish, which now even more oddly seems an irrelevance, as he is so fluent in speech between the songs, that if you did not know where he came from, you would have no cause to wonder.

There was a good breadth of songs from across his albums and E.P.s, the finger-picked songs working better. If the whole concert had been the guitar-chord songs, then the gig would not have been as memorable. One of the finger-picked songs that particularly stood out was 'Criminals' from his most recent album; the performance of that was a transfixing beauty.

There were two songs that were performed on keys. One of these, the final song in the encore, was 'The Dreamer' which is also at present my favorite song of his. The original of this song is on guitar, and I would have probably have preferred to have heard it performed on that instrument, though then again it was nice enough to have heard it. Between the first song of the encore and 'The Dreamer', he performed a reworking of Paul Simon's Graceland, which was charming. The performance was for approx 90 minutes. It was very enjoyable and I am glad I went.

One note - how many times should a performer tell the audience that they appreciate them? This became such a frequent refrain between songs, that it did not annoy, as appeared genuine, though it did appear odd.

Rating: 08/10.