LIAM Frost's star is on the rise and, as he and his band, The Slowdown Family, ambled on to the Fibbers stage, the audience let him know that, with appreciative whoops.

The Manchester singer-songwriter, pictured, has been making waves in his own city for the past couple of years, and was well overdue a visit to York, especially, as he said himself, his dad is from Acomb, and he owed his family a visit.

With laconic humour, he introduced his band, and mentioned that there was "an awful lot of disease... and that you might catch Slowdown lurgie".

But if the band were feeling a bit off-kilter health-wise, they certainly weren't musically.

Accompanied by an acoustic guitar, Liam, looking like a cross between The Soundtrack Of Our Lives' Ebbot Lundburg and a young Guy Garvey, kicked into his set, and the band followed his lead, with some beautiful touches of violin, mandolin and piano, all of which added a slightly melancholy, country touch to the sound.

Shall We Dance, for example, with a haunting piano line and Liam's harmonica, was folk in the style of Dylan. If Tonight We Could Only Sleep, with its acoustic intro, toe-tingling violin and gorgeous gentle harmonies, had a Pogues-like Irish tinge.

Liam did a solo take in the middle of the set, producing a dulcimer which he played with intensity and feeling. The finale Try Try Try had the audience dancing like crazy cats on a hot tin Fibbers floor.

Support was provided by the excellent Fear Of Music, another young band from Manchester, who provided a tight, rocked-up set.