Thus his British live debut (and only his seventh gig in total), was a resolutely downbeat affair in the back room of a pub in Camden, North London, in front of 250 or so people so tightly jammed together that it was a struggle even to take off your jacket as the temperature rose. There was no fanfare, no gaudy lightshow and certainly no slick session musicians to bolster a performance that revealed Lennon Jr as an embryonic and at times enigmatic talent, who may well go on to great things if he is sufficiently strong-willed to continue developing at his own pace.

Looking remarkably like his parents - the thin nose and mouth of his father combining with his mother's Asiatic eyes - he began with the title track of his new album Into The Sun (to be released on May 18), a gentle bossa nova played at a volume that would have seemed modest by the standards of a home stereo system, let alone a rock'n'roll show. He was flanked by two Japanese women: the keyboard player Yuka Honda, whom he described as "the love of my life", and the drummer Miho Hatori, who provided cool, if somewhat approximate harmony vocals somewhat after the fashion of Astrud Gilberto. The group was completed by Timo Ellis (bass/vocals) and percussionist Duma Love who weighed in with a tongue-twisting rap during the encore of "One Night" while Lennon regaled the crowd with a human beatbox routine. This contrast between traditional and modern idioms reflected a musical personality that was not so much split as riven by multiple fractures, often co-existing within the same song.

"Mystery Juice," which began as a lilting ballad, was suddenly enveloped by a blizzard of fuzz-box guitar heroics, and eventually wound up as a meandering pseudo-jazz-rock instrumental sequence. Part One Of "The Cowboy Trilogy" was a ramshackle hillbilly two-step." Bathtub" was one of several medium-slow numbers with ostensibly pretty tunes knocked out of kilter by odd or unexpected chord changes.

Obviously Lennon has been greatly influenced by his parents, but the strongest clue to the provenance of his musical outlook came with the only cover version of the night, a ragged attempt at the Beach Boys' song "God Only Knows," which he introduced with a story about meeting Brian Wilson that showed Lennon's deep admiration for that group's composer and mainstay. There were intimations of genius at this intriguing and at times enthralling gig, but the overall impression was of work still in progress. Let's hope Lennon is not distracted before he gets a chance to bring it all to proper fruition.