Only a few years ago, Elliot James Reay was busking around his home city of Manchester – tonight the young star in waiting is opening for American artist Benson Boone at Co-op Live in the city as part of the European leg of Benson’s worldwide tour.  His repertoire owed much to the music of the late fifties; his cover of Roy Robinson’s Oh Pretty Woman was faithful. However, his own tracks such as Boy in Love and Sweetness hinted at a greater potential that could see Reay becoming more famous. He has the voice and the looks – he just needs to find his place in the music world. Whoseaudience remained questionable: his music may not resonate as well with a younger audience as with an older one. Whether he will become a major artist in his own right, time will tell, though if he were to end up performing on the cruise ships, it would be a huge loss to pop music.

Arriving on stage with the first of many backflips, Benson Boone – the man who has made moustaches fashionable again – appeared to have boundless energy in a two-hour set where the action never seemed to drop apart from an overlong interaction with a fan towards the end of the night. Having the killer pop songs of Tom Grennan and the likeability of Harry Styles, Boone knew how to entertain the sold-out 23,000-strong crowd with charm and friendliness.

{2A}Of course, it helps when you have bangers such as Sorry, I’m Here for Someone Else and Mr Electric Blue – the latter accompanied by a shower of blue love hearts.  Slowing things down on the appropriately named Slow It Down, Boone sat playing his piano in stark contrast with his usual trick of using the grand piano top as an aid for him to perform yet another backflip. Drunk in My Mind showcased his wide repertoire on a track that even Bruno Mars could have composed.

His cover of the Kodaline song All I Have was a huge surprise – the song from the Irish band is not one that could be considered alongside the rest of Boone’s own music. His faithful rendition was haunting, inspirational, and totally unexpected.

The huge stage production never dwarfed Boone – his own stage presence was magnetic enough despite him riding alongside a huge chandelier on Magical Mystical and running along the walkway like he was training for a marathon. Beautiful Things – his biggest hit to date – closed the evening as the fireworks erupted one last time with a performance where Boone had sparkled throughout.