Jon Gomm / Sam Airey

Ever since Passionflower hit You Tube and a man called Stephen Fry tweeted about a little known Leeds guitarist called Jon Gomm, everyone has wanted to see this amazing virtuoso musician in the flesh. Good job the man likes touring in general then! Nearing the hump of a seven week tour, Jon Gomm is tonight back in The Hop, where numerous times before he has played to people talking over him in the downstairs bar. Well tonight he truly has made it, as he takes to the upstairs room stage for a sold out show. It's the first time I have been to an upstairs gig at the Hop that is full of chairs. More people would have been able to come along, and they are still crammed next to each other, as we find out when we squash in near the end of Sam Airey's support slot. He has the crowd pretty transfixed from the word go, with songs like the smashing 'Station Approach' and the gorgeous 'The Blackout'. Catch him in and around Leeds for a true treat.

A hooded Jon comes on stage and starts playing an improvised track I have not heard before, most likely to warm his hands up, and then straight into my favourite old track, 'Stupid Blues'. I always feel bad saying that because there is no singing, but I love the tune; it's varying beats, its varying blues pitches… just brilliant. It seems Jon is taking a while to warm up this evening, but seeing as most of this audience have not seen him before (he later asks for a show of hands) then who's to know! With songs this complicated too who the hell has the right to say anything!

He's soon hit his stride though, telling us the story of his forbidden love with a chav in his hometown of Blackpool when he was a mosher (he stresses he is not being disrespectful), "her family was a lot more violent then Romeo's…!" and the song does the talking for him, with clever lyrics and a catchy beat. Following this is the song about the brave Chinese boy who alerted his townsfolk to murderous officials, called 'Wukan Motorcycle Kid', which cleverly (and in a most lo-fi way) uses the plectrum as a muter on the strings to give an oriental sound.

It's not all jokes tonight however, as Jon very honestly tells us about his recent struggles, saying he has bipolar and other nasty issues to deal with, having to cancel a German tour two nights in. I find this man even more amazing now, to have the strength to do this and talk about it, and how it influences some darker tunes like 'Telepathy'. He promises to raise us out of the temporary dive into depression and does so with new song 'Deep Sea Fishes', an upbeat song about the romance between deep sea creatures that leads to "baby monsters". Brilliant.

Next up is another You Tube smash in the form of a cover of Rufus and Chaka Khan's 'Ain't Nobody', I must say my favourite cover of this tune (agreed by Hawk Wolinski, who wrote the song!). The ways Jon uses his playing and especially his vocals to vary the volume in a song is difficult to pull off correctly in itself. He tells us how he gets his sounds, and an intrigued audience (mind you they have been the same all night) watches. He builds it up from the bass drum, to the tom, to the snare, to the cymbals, all banging away on the guitar ('Wilma' if you didn't know) using his right hand and fingers and thumb, then adds the bass notes and melody on the fretboard. Then there's the quick sweep across to twist the tuning keys (actually banjo tuning pegs!) to change the pitch and to top it all off the vocals, (the only sound affected by a pedal) which are awesome too. Talk about one man band

'Everything' is a ten minute song, which gets played rarely due to that fact, but is a corker of a tune and at points incorporates Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' and 'You To Me Are Everything' by The Real Thing. This is followed by another classic 'Hey Child', where the guitar does have an effect added, but only distortion to turn the humble and 'cosmetically altered' Wilma into an electric shredder! Jon also uses a loop pedal here to layer sounds of the taps and scratches for the intro and outro.

Most people here no doubt have come off the back of 'Passionflower', and Jon says this until last. Well saying that he does treat us to one more, his cover of Bob Marley's 'Wait In Vain'. For this he unplugs and comes to the side of the crowd (blocking the doors!) and asks everyone to help him sing, to which they all oblige, and are pretty good. I have seen Jon many times and I can say the jokes are still as funny, the songs as awe inspiring to hear as well as 'see' and this time I love the addition of the brief lesson on how to get more from your guitar. And as always yes, I (and possibly many others) went home and tried this (to no avail on my part) with our axes… Jon still has a mammoth five weeks of touring the UK to do for this round so be sure to catch him if you can.