A decade into their career, Tindersticks' lachrymose balladry - heavy on the weeping violins and mournful glockenspiel - has earned them a rabid and rather highbrow fanbase. As the literature for this concert notes, the sextet are big with "playwrights, film-makers and artists"; director Claire Denis has commissioned two scores from them, and the Royal Court's artistic director, Ian Rickson, was reportedly "humbled" by the experience of seeing them live. But there simply aren't enough playwrights, film-makers and artists in Britain to make Tindersticks stars. Their albums are greeted with commercial indifference.
The sticking point seems to be lead singer Stuart Staples. As he walks on stage, he looks every inch the troubled genius: tall, in a crumpled suit jacket, with a hangdog expression. Most men would think twice about sporting a droopy Lee Hazlewood-style moustache, but Staples is made of sterner stuff. At one point he leans on the microphone stand looking pained and intense. The stand gives way slightly, which causes him to look even more pained and intense. It is unwitting slapstick - but no one laughs. They are watching in such hushed reverence that a solitary hiccup from the back of the audience ricochets around the auditorium like cannon-fire.
His voice is an acquired taste, much as the Icelandic delicacy of shark meat, buried in the ground for a year then exhumed when rotten, is an acquired taste. His closest musical relation is, regrettably, Vic Reeves, singing in the "pub style" on Shooting Stars.
If it's initially hard to square Staples' delivery with the high seriousness of their devoted fans, the band's appeal gradually reveals itself as the set unfolds. One startling burst of Velvet Underground-ish noise aside, it sticks fairly rigidly to a crepuscular blueprint. Their songs are big on insomnia - one, 4:48 Psychosis, is based on Sarah Kane's posthumously produced play on the subject - and their music perfectly captures a sense of drowsy, anxious melancholy. Sleepy Song floats prettily around the tiny theatre: intimate music in an intimate venue for an audience that is likely to remain intimate for the foreseeable future.
· Ends tonight. Box office: 020-7565 5000.
