Last week, Bob Dylan quoted the late Sam Cooke on singing prettily: "Well that's very kind of you, but voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are. Instead, they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth."

That's a pretty good summation of Richard Dawson's appeal.

He bawled, shrieked, whispered and moaned, while coaxing similarly scarifying sounds from his guitar. Dawson apologised for the fact that his voice was feeling the strain of a lengthy tour but the audience that crammed into the tiny community centre behind Brighton Station wasn't complaining.

His songs conjured dark stories of cruelty, debauchery, loneliness and terror.

When he sang Poor Old Horse unaccompanied by any instrument, the audience joined in as if the tale was too harrowing for one man to bear.

But between the mesmerising performances Dawson revealed a self-deprecating Geordie wit which had the crowd laughing uproariously.

He closed the show with a brutal performance of The Vile Stuff, which is gaining recognition as a cult classic. It was as far removed from the whimsy of alt-folk as you can get.

Not many performers send the audience out into a world which feels altered by the experience of hearing them sing - Richard Dawson did.