In the tradition of swoon-worthy British singer-songwriters comes Lewis Watson. The young Watson (who just turned 21) has released 4 EPs so far, and has another forthcoming this year. Like Ed Sheeran before him, Watson has a poetic way with words, which tends to make young women become infatuated with him.

This was made abundantly clear at his concert at the Bootleg in Los Angeles, his first headlining show in the city. A glimpse around the sold-out, intimate venue revealed that the crowd was mostly young women in their teens, with a few parents acting as chaperones.

The night got off to a hip start with an opening set by The Native Sibling, who rocked smoky vocals and obscure instruments. Their cool ways paved the way for Watson, who took the stage around 8, trying to fix his severely out-of-tune guitar. It’s usually a good measure of an artist’s resilience and rapport with the audience to see how they deal with unexpected setbacks, but the young Brit handled the situation with awkward charm, cracking endearingly nervous jokes about the situation.

That kind of energy permeated the evening—toeing the line between nerves about playing his first solo show in L.A., surrounded by devoted fans who chanted all his lyrics back to him, and the intoxicating power that experience provides. Earlier this year, Dave Grohl said, "That's one of the great things about music. You can sing a song to 85,000 people and they'll sing it back for 85,000 different reasons.” While Lewis Watson wasn’t singing to 85,000 people (though he has nearly that many “likes” on Facebook), it was clear that he was seeing his songs through the eyes of the 150 or so adoring fans gathered around him.

About 2/3 of the way through the show, he waded through the throng of fans to do a cover of Guillemot’s “Made Up Love Song #43.” Slowly turning in a circle, illuminated by the sickly blue light of a hundred iPhones, the moment hammered home how close Watson is to the precipice of something big.

Does Watson have the chops to make it big? Yes. His throaty baritone voice is pleasant to listen to, and brings a sense of reality to his poetic lyrics. Does he have stage presence? Yes. It’s not overbearing, by any means, and one can’t help but wish he would keep his eyes open more than 5% of the time he is singing, but there’s charm in his self-deprecation, and a British accent never hurts, especially with the ladies.

His songs “Into the Wild” and “Sink or Swim” have been getting some airplay on KCRW and other similar radio stations, but it still remains to be see if Watson will be as massively popular as Sheeran. Given the response of his fans at the Bootleg, his imminent success seems like a sure bet.

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