Christopher Owens, Broadcast, Glasgow

It’s unlikely that the florid intimacy of Christopher Owens’ debut solo album ‘Lysandre’ was designed to be performed in a dark basement cellar of a Glasgow bar, however that’s where he finds himself this evening as he tries to recreate the record’s lovelorn charms live on stage to a curious audience.

These are interesting times for the former Girls frontman as he seeks to forge a solo career as something of a bruised troubadour. He is a curiously low-key presence though throughout tonight’s performance; never the most expressive of performers he feels more withdrawn than ever, content to meekly sit down on a chair hidden by his distinctive cloak of blonde hair.

Fortunately, Owens’ reticence is off set by the wonderful band he has enlisted. Featuring a couple of members of Girls’ final touring line up as well as two female backing singers, the five piece band is completed by a wonderfully smartly dressed older gentlemen in an immaculate suit who plays saxophone, harmonica and flute throughout, all sounds that are central to ’Lysandre’.

The band plays the whole album in full, capturing the sound and bittersweet joy of these songs perfectly. ‘New York City’ and ‘Here We Go Along’ rattle along with an engaging joi de vivre enlivened by skronking sax, while the more tender laments of ‘A Broken Heart’ and ‘Everywhere You Knew’ are perfectly pitched.

With ‘Lysandre’ completed after only 30 minutes, it leaves time for an encore of covers of songs that apparently mean a great deal to Owens. You can certainly sense the reverence in his accomplished versions of ‘The Boxer’ by Simon and Garfunkel and an utterly gorgeous version of The Everly Brothers ‘Let It Be Me’. Closing with a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’ he finally breaks out into a wide smile and it’s a truly heart warming sight; he even throws his carefully placed stage adornment of a bouquet of white flowers into the crowd.

You never quite know whether Owens finds live performance a painful or rewarding process, but at the end of tonight’s show in Glasgow you are left within no doubt that he is blossoming into a songwriter of real class.