Walking into a Jamie Cullum concert is a disconcerting experience. It is like being transported into a record-company executive's fevered dream. The venue is packed, the audience incredibly diverse. There don't appear to be any Amish present, but every other section of society seems to be here: pensioners, teenyboppers and - this is the bit where the dream really gets good - people labouring under the impression that a gig is something one must dress smartly for, like a fancy restaurant. This intimates they never normally go to gigs.
Cullum has attained commercial nirvana, winning over those who ordinarily ignore music. He is certainly charismatic, climbing underneath his piano, eschewing amplification and running singing into the audience. His own songs are well-written and slot neatly among the standards. His moody reinterpretation of Pharrell's Frontin' is fantastic.
But you can see his critics' point as well. The biggest surprise about his version of My Generation is Cullum's claim that it was rejected by the Brit Awards show, thus making the unprecedented and potentially libellous insinuation that the event's organisers possess some musical taste. He says he hopes he dies before he gets old, but sounds like he has been seriously considering a stakeholder pension. Indeed, he often gives the impression he could be no more flummoxed by a song's meaning if the lyrics were in Aramaic.
He sings Radiohead's High and Dry as a medley with Singin' in the Rain. This would be funny were it intended as a satirical dig at Thom Yorke's overwrought lyrical sneering, but Cullum is evidently too good-natured for that, and ends up sounding profoundly odd: "All your insides fall to pieces, you just sit there wishing you could still make love," he sings. "What a glorious feeling - I'm happy again."
The audience doesn't care. Perhaps they don't care about lyrics, or indeed music: the oldies come for nostalgia, the youngsters because of a vague notion that listening to 1940s jazz is sophisticated. Or perhaps they are rendered oblivious by a cherubic face, some showmanship and a nice voice. Either way, they adore him. The record executives dream shows no signs of ending.
· At the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool tonight, then touring. Box office: 0151-709 3789.
