“Beer!” announces Nick Jonas, saluting the crowd with a brimming plastic cup. For a 22-year-old who came of age in the Disney TV movie Camp Rock, and wore a purity ring in his teens as a vow of chastity, this is near-maverick behaviour.
But the youngest of New Jersey’s Jonas Brothers, who captivated teen hearts in the late 00s, has been kicking over the traces lately. He’s shaved his head, posed for monochrome photos in his underwear and released an album of chiseled pop-R&B, which reached the US top 10 last autumn (it came out here last week).
And here, touring for the first time as a solo act, he tests the boundaries further. “I feel sexy tonight!” he declares – which generates fewer squeals than the moment he takes off his sunglasses – and there’s a hip-swinging karaoke cover of Outkast’s Roses, its expletives carefully enunciated.
Little about his hour-long set, in fact, suggests he was ever a Jonas Brother, other than a lack of frontman chops – the consequence of always having been part of a trio. To this end, Jonas works hard to fill the void where a raging ego should be, borrowing fans’ phones to take selfies during the throwback-funk of Teacher and making a proper, gospelised meal of Chains – chest-thumps, falsetto and all.
His talent is undeniable; a heavy-lidded walk-through of Numb is more Miguel than JoBro, while strapping on a guitar for half the set is more than just affectation. At this stage, though, Justin Timberlake – the blueprint for every cute-to-credible ex-boyband makeover of the past decade – doesn’t have to worry.
Jonas has the musical ability, as confirmed by recent collaborations with Angel Haze and Jhene Aiko, and the mandatory hewn-from-teak physique, but does he have the unswerving sense of self that separates the superstars from the merely good?
