Gig review: James Bay at The Wardrobe, Leeds

“So, Leeds, the plan is that you’re going to hear a lot of new songs tonight,” James Bay tells the capacity crowd stuffed into The Wardrobe, slowly tuning his guitar strings. “But when I come and see an artist, I don’t want the new s*** either.” Ripples of laughter spread across the floor, and he flashes a smirk. “I want the bangers, so let’s give you some of that too, right?”

The Hertfordshire singer-songwriter’s catalogue has occasionally professed a particular quality of serious lovelorn sensibilities since he first burst onto the scene a decade ago, which makes it all the more pleasantly conversational to find him filled with a garrulous self-effacement.

Here, at the first of two underplay shows crammed into the basement of Munro House – he will do this all over again for a late evening performance – provided by Crash Records, it offsets his Americana pop with an intimate quality, like crowding around the bloke with the guitar at the end of a house party night.

October’s fourth record, Changes All the Time, looks set to return him to the upper echelons of the UK Album Charts, having previously topped them in 2015 with debut effort Chaos and the Calm. Certainly, by sheer numbers here in West Yorkshire, his popularity has not dimmed, with queues snaking around the block for the late show before the matinee has even started.

But even as he promises to lean heavily on the new stuff, there’s barely a beat where he doesn’t dip back into a past record. If You Ever Want to Be In Love remains an underappreciated ballad, recast for solo guitar interpretation here, while the unreleased Stay After Summer is resurrected by audience request to his palpable delight.

Some of the new material is among his best for years too; Easy Distraction, co-penned with The Killers, is the sort of MOR cut that has deceptively more beneath its obvious hooks to sink your teeth into. But the biggest reactions are naturally saved for Let It Go and Hold Back the River.

At the rear of the crowd, unbeknownst to the performer on stage, one man gets down on his knees and pops the question to his partner as the last song swells to a chorus crescendo. It almost steals the night away – but if he knew, you imagine Bay would not mind one jot.