Brad Mehldau, Barbican Hall

Brad Mehldau is a cool cat. An intellectual one, introverted to the point of semi-autism, precise and clear. A strong mystique based on critic-proof good taste and hardly talking to anyone, least of all many music journalists (I’ve tried). At least that’s what I used to think before last night’s extraordinary show. He still looks a bit of a nerd, hunched over his piano and pale as a baby polar bear locked in the attic for too long, but this was a warm, enveloping trip of a gig. The 21st century is the century the nerds took over - Gates, Zuckerberg, Mehldau. The jocks, the lookers, the sexy ones: your time is up - you really should have been concentrating in algebra, after all.

Brad Mehldau is a cool cat. An intellectual one, introverted to the point of semi-autism, precise and clear. A strong mystique based on critic-proof good taste and hardly talking to anyone, least of all many music journalists (I’ve tried). At least that’s what I used to think before last night’s extraordinary show. He still looks a bit of a nerd, hunched over his piano and pale as a baby polar bear locked in the attic for too long, but this was a warm, enveloping trip of a gig. The 21st century is the century the nerds took over - Gates, Zuckerberg, Mehldau. The jocks, the lookers, the sexy ones: your time is up - you really should have been concentrating in algebra, after all.