Credit: Found On Internet

“This next song is dedicated to this guy,” Mark Kozelek deadpans, pointing in the direction of a particularly vocal fan. “It’s called, ‘I’m going to punch you in your fucking face.”

It’s understandable that Kozelek is on edge tonight as the Islington Carling Apollo was hardly built with the soul-bearing, acoustic artist in mind. The small stage (something like two planks of plywood resting on folded carpet) is in earshot of a constantly creaking toilet door, the till crashes throughout the set and for extra laughs Mark Kozelek – get the nerve of the man - prefers some degree of silence when he’s performing.

As the force behind Red House Painters and Sun Kill Moon, Kozelek has made addictive listening out of stark insights into a romantically screwed-up psyche. He has artistically thrived off emotional crisis, transformed excruciating honesty into transfixing art, yet tonight he’s got his work cut out for him with an un-oiled door and over-exuberant fans.

Thankfully Kozelek is no lightweight, and with the stone-cold front of the boxers that populate the songs of his last album, Ghosts of the Great Highway, he quietly takes on the challenge of his surroundings. His interpretations of AC/DC’s love/sex songs, like Love at First Feel, meld with Sun Kill Moon’s lengthier epics, built around imagery of young doomed figures and typhoons “bringing clouds down to the sea”.

Whatever narrative he chooses Kozelek revels in its emotional clarity, and it’s not long before he’s gently overwhelming us with the pulsing lullabies of Gentle Moon and Grace Cathedral Park - songs that bridge his earlier sound in RHP with the earthier SKM. The inadvertently hostile environment of the dingy room-sized venue coats his disarming lyrics with tension. The distracting bustle heightens the intensity of Kozelek’s frail, soaring voice and gives weight to his banter about boxers beating seven shades of shit out of each other.

Ultimately, the battle between the noisy crowd and the poetic artist was never going to be a fair fight. In the first of two encores Kozelek brings an unidentified female vocalist on stage and together they deliver a measured rendition of AC/DC’s Love Hungry Man. The following encore sees Kozelek sing a number of RHP songs a cappella, unleashing the full power of his voice and finally silencing the crowd. No need for the face-punching song after all.