The Sleepy Jackson, Scala, London <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->
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Your support makes all the difference.The Sleepy Jackson's leader, Luke Steele, tends towards self-sabotage live. The tour for the first Sleepy album, Lovers, saw its psych-pop subtleties and ELO-meets-George Harrison melodies lost in noise, noodling, rock-warrior posturing and general pratting about. The fine line between waywardness and genius? No, the shows were rubbish.
It was easy to guess why. Steele's "difficult" reputation had seen him get through several line-ups, and his self-doubt had him hitting the bottle. Then he found God and, whatever you make of that, it seems to be working for him on the new Sleepy album, Personality. Borrowing guitars from George Harrison, harmonies from Brian Wilson's pocket symphonies to God, star-gazing from Mercury Rev and demure coo from Prince, it sets its sonic ambitions high, even as its lyrics wrestle with doubt.
Much the same can be said of Steele's new live show, which gets off to a cracking start tonight. With a new, sober-looking crew of men in black, the songs are played straight, minus wig-outs. "Devil Was In My Yard" is vivid and exuberant, Steele emphatically spitting out: "But the devil! Ain't in my yard no more!" The ELO-ish pop swoon of "Good Dancers" is ecstatically received, and when he tears into the joyous "Come to This", he sounds like Bob Dylan covering Tom Petty.
But the devil, it seems, is still in his equipment. "This wouldn't be a Sleepy show without something going wrong," he says, as he frowns and fiddles with his guitar at a choppy mid-set point.
The linking music - a montage from Personality - suggests a desire to engulf his audience in sound, but momentum is gradually lost, prompting Steele to tear into a ferocious rocker. The result is a tension between melody and noise, with all that implies about Steele's struggles between self-belief and frustration. The lush choral harmonies of "Dream On" give way to a viciously distorted racket, which almost undoes much of the good work.
But Steele has the songs to keep things on track, not to mention a devoted audience. "Rain Falls for Wind" gets them pogo-ing. A turgid "Glasshouses" slows things down, but the Roxy-meets-Ziggy glam stomp of "Vampire Racecourse" turns up the heat again. When the lights go up, the clamour for an encore brings Steele back on. The fans believe, and he's on his way to catching up with them.
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