Anderson .Paak: O2 Academy, Birmingham — high levels of crowd-pleasing showmanship

ANDERSON .PAAK does not do subtle understatement. Playing a one-off headline show in Birmingham on the eve of his appearances at the Reading and Leeds festivals, the southern California R&B star was in musical-renaissance-man mode, singing, rapping, dancing and drumming with infectiously irrepressible energy. This was a festival-scale show crammed into a mid-size venue with high levels of crowd-pleasing showmanship backed up by a premier-league stage production.