Gonzales

"What exactly do you call this?" ponders Gonzales from the stage. "What's the point of all this?" It seems a pertinent question. Here we are, seated amid art deco splendour, watching a chubby Canadian in a bathrobe and white gloves playing Ravel and Gershwin-inspired piano pieces, rapping, singing songs in a genre of rock so soft at least one bears the influence of Neil Sedaka's Laughter in the Rain, and engaging in lengthy monologues on topics ranging from the existential – "an entertainer such as myself is only the sum of the audience's thoughts about him" – to the talents or otherwise of fellow pianists: "Jools Holland? May I spit?" By his own account, this represents one of Gonzales's more straightforward shows: after all, we could have been in Paris, when he played the piano for a record-breaking 27 hours solid, or in Berlin, where he performed a version of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar in its entirety, with vocals from sexually fixated rapper Peaches. "People really loved it," he frowns. "Maybe they liked something about our personalities and ignored the music." Whether or not you agree with his preferred appellation of "musical genius", you'd struggle to dislike him. If the soft-rock ballads or the jokey raps don't grab you, at least you know something else will be along in a minute. Organising the audience to sing along, he explains terms used in classical music; gently pressing one key repeatedly on his piano – a close-up of the keyboard is displayed on a giant video screen above the stage – he idly remarks "is it just me or is that vaguely sexual?" You're left ruminating on an artist who appears to have got to the stage where he can sell out venues like this by the simple but impressive expedient of being unlike anyone else. The question of what exactly you call this is never really answered, but it's nothing if not hugely entertaining. At Alma de Cuba, Liverpool (0151-702 7392), on 20 May.