Jesse Malin's through-a-beer-glass-darkly take on American rock wouldn't be nearly as fashionable if it was sold under the name John Mellencamp. It just goes to show that having the right friends (in his case, Ryan Adams) and hair makes all the difference between gushing adulation and the Radio 2 C-list. With Adams's stock so high, his protege - whose first album, The Fine Art of Self-Destruction, Adams produced - was always going to get a warm reception. Without Adams, Malin would be just another songwriter, romanticising his hard-knocks New York life.

Just how hard was implied by his entering to a tape of the Taxi Driver monologue about "washing all the scum off the streets". Malin's neighbourhood was so rough, he told us during a typically lengthy anecdote, that a male prostitution ring operated out of his high school. You wouldn't want to mess with this stocky little man, who was once the lead singer with punk no-hopers D Generation.

As the set went on, and he debuted songs from new album The Heat, his punk past frequently poked through. What began as semi-acoustic folk mimsiness became assertively rocking. Mimsiness actually better suited his reedy voice, but rock he would, and the passive crowd ("You fucking stiffs", as he put it) were expected to rock with him. There was tentative shuffling through Hotel Columbia, a Stones-esque rampage dedicated to London's famous pop hostelry, followed by a bold singalong attempt on the rip-roaring Helpless. By the time New World Order shuddered to a close, Malin was hurling his mic stand at the monitors and the het-up audience were rushing the stage. Ryan's mate proved himself, then, and Mellencamp had better watch his back.

· At the Concorde, Brighton (01273 722272), tonight. Then touring.