ROCK music is teeming with great singers. However, great performers are fewer and far between. Lenny Kravitz possesses both the pipes and the charisma to carry any crowd, anywhere and, on reflection, it is little wonder his 2000 Greatest Hits package has sold upwards of 11 million copies.

It mattered little to a near-capacity Newcastle crowd on Wednesday night that the multi-talented musician and beau of many a beautiful woman had all but fallen off the rock radar in recent years.

His latest studio album, last year’s It Is Time For A Love Revolution, disappeared without trace in the UK and these were his first club shows for some time.

Yet Kravitz is on a mission to win back the hearts and minds of the audiences who first recognised his ability 20 years ago and that mission appears more than possible. Opting against a two-hour blast through as many classic tracks as he could possibly muster, the 45-year-old allowed his songs to take their own rambling course within a set which essentially morphed into one long jam.

Surrounded by so many irrepressible musicians, this was no bad thing and trademark ballads such as I Belong To You and Let Love Rule were transformed into dazzling rock epics. Kravitz has never allowed his ego to stand in the way of the band and central to that band is guitarist Craig Ross.

The man responsible for the riff of encore pleaser Are You Gonna Go My Way is a wizard with six strings and possibly the best electric guitarist we’ve borne witness to in Newcastle since Slash’s incendiary appearance with Velvet Revolver.

Together Ross and Kravitz are a volatile couple, trading off each other’s homely hooks and soaring solos and never losing sight of the jazz-esque vibe which underpinned a truly memorable blues rock tour de force on Tyneside.

If this was testing the water, then it quickly reached boiling point. Kravitz will be back where he belongs, in the big arenas, within six months, so if you missed this, then you really did miss a rare treat.