Pop's hall of fame isn't exactly crammed with the offspring of pop legends, but Damian Marley may well succeed where Julian Lennon, Jakob Dylan and, er, Ziggy Marley failed. After taking two albums to find his feet, the 27-year-old has produced an album, Welcome to Jamrock, that is a colossus: it relocates the Marley name in a superlative mix of reggae, pop and dancehall. He will surely become a huge star. His first (sold out) visit to these shores feels like an event from the minute a man strides on stage waving a Rastafarian flag - a job he holds down for 90 minutes, after which time he looks in need of a respirator.

The flag-bearer's withering provides a comical counterpoint, but otherwise the crowd of young girls, punks and ageing Rastamen are transfixed by Marley. The son of Cindy Brakespeare (Miss World 1976), he looks like Johnny Depp playing Bob Marley, and has the longest dreadlocks ever sighted on a human being.

Damian Marley has inherited his father's gifts as a showman, and has the crowd singing within minutes. But musically, his bigger influence is Black Uhuru. His throaty vocal delivery is shaped by Shabba Ranks, daily weed and a reported obsession with Guinness. With a dynamic band (including two female vocalists who vaguely echo the I-Threes), Marley tackles subjects such as corruption, war, cocaine and pesticides without sounding preachy. Rightly or wrongly, black music has become synonymous with guns, bling and bad behaviour. When Marley comments: "It's such a shame to see my generation going astray," he sounds like he could make a difference.

Superior renditions of his father's War and Could You Be Loved seem designed to keep the music alive. But it will delight the younger Marley that his own Welcome to Jamrock - a blistering, uplifting tirade against gun violence - gets the loudest cheer of the night.