He's young, attractive, funny, and performs heartfelt pieces bemoaning the fact he has only his guitar for company. But James Blunt this man most certainly is not. In the wrong hands this, a sold out date at the cramped and overheated Late Room, could turn into a bit of a nightmare, particularly as its five deep at the bar and halfway through the set, some bright spark upstairs decides it would be a brilliant idea to turn on some funky house very, very loudly. However, what Mr Matthews lacks in the size of accompaniment, he makes up for with his talent to reduce a large crowd to silence and make each and every person there feel as though they’re the only one in the room. Songs like recent single Elusive and album title track Passing Stranger are performed so tenderly, you have to prop yourself up by a nearby pole to keep yourself from swooning. Even an impromptu ditty about how great Travel Lodges are manages to get various young ladies in the audience clamping their boyfriend’s arms around them that little bit tighter. A lazy reviewer could easily say that Matthews looks set to be the heir apparent to the space vacated by such acoustic troubadours as Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake, particularly as he rather conveniently manages to sound like a combination of the two. But I’m going to be even lazier. He’s flipping lovely. And hopefully he’ll stay that way. | 
