Dan Croll, The Cockpit, Leeds

To witness an artist realising their own success and enjoyment at the beginning of a career is a golden moment. Dan Croll exudes triumph, shock and modesty in equal measures as the audience sing lyric after lyric back to him inside The Cockpit.

Having released debut album ‘Sweet Disarray’ just this month, Croll and band are half-way through their UK tour, and already ‘In/Out’ and ‘Compliment Your Soul’ are clear anthems. The darker tint to ‘You Hear Me’ and ‘I Wanna Know’ are placed perfectly dispersing the more joyful songs in the set. The middle section of ‘Maway’ shows off not just a mere Paul Simon influence but brilliantly executed vocal harmonies that would be welcome amongst anything on ‘Graceland’.

Croll, coming across somewhere between awkward and confident, delivers a very personal set. ‘Sweet Disarray’ feels so truthful as he sings ‘my mind has given way to an age that’s colour grey’ touching upon the harrowing subject of struggling with dementia. Croll manages to break the barriers between the performer and the person that anybody can engage with making him seem both admirable and endearing.