Baxter Dury, Metro Club, London

A talent all his own

"This is a bit bleedin' scary, innit?" grins Baxter Dury, son of the late Ian Dury, as he takes the stage for his first proper show. You can see his point. As if the prospect of playing to 200 excitable and, in some cases, distinctly inebriated Londoners isn't daunting enough, tonight's gig just happens to coincide with another life-changing event. Shortly before the show Dury's girlfriend went into labour with their first child; Dury decided to go ahead with the gig anyway.

The first time Dury performed in public was when he sang "My Old Man" at his father's funeral, a song that Ian Dury wrote for his own dad decades before. Just a month ago, aged 29, Dury Jr released his first album, a beautiful collection of songs entitled Len Parrot's Memorial Lift. If the title sounds vaguely Blockheadian, you can be sure that the comparisons end there. You see, Dury is treading a different path to his father. The album is a glorious and graceful sojourn through Sixties and Seventies psychedelia, but brought up to date with a beguiling Flaming Lips-style lightness of touch. Dury unveils a rare melodic gift on it, as well as a tantalising taste for the absurd.

Vocally, Dury falls somewhere between the reedy falsetto of Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue and a small child locked in a cupboard (it's a fragile sound that is distinctly at odds with his speaking voice – this gruff cockney makes Frank Butcher sound like Julian Clary). His singing is perfectly complemented by the sturdier tones of his backing vocalists, in particular the newcomer Johanna Hussey.

Along with an abundance of talent, Dury has inherited something else from his father, and that's a great address book. Tonight the singer has gathered together a impressive set of musicians, including the Nosferatu-esque Blockheads bassist Norman Watt-Roy, the Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley and keyboard player Jason Hazeley, of the acoustic duo Ben & Jason. Playing things safe, Dury and the band work their way through Len Parrot's Memorial Lift from start to finish. There's not one duff song here. "Oscar Brown", the chorus of which contains a knowing steal from a Velvet Underground song, is a gorgeously melancholy affair. By contrast "Lucifer's Grain" is upbeat and brimming with mischief. Despite his expression of wide-eyed alarm, Dury seems to be having a good time. Each song is tailed off with a broad grin and a yell of "Awwwight?"

"That weren't so scary after all," he exclaims at the end of "Boneyard Dogs" and, with that, he's gone. For once the crowd don't demand an encore. After all, this singer's got somewhere to be.