By Jack Aitchison

PAOLO Nutini shocked locals last weekend, coming on stage for an impromtu gig at a bar in his home town.

The Paisley-born star singer was in town on Friday evening at The Cave Bar watching the band Wreckless performing on stage before being convinced to pick up the microphone himself.

The star, who performed his most recent album in front of thousands at T in The Park 2014 and again at Glasgow Summer Sessions the following year, entertained locals in the bar to a rendition of some tunes, including fan favourite Pencil Full of Lead.

The bar, situated on 38 New Street, have posted a video of his impromtu performance, which has since received almost 240,000 views, more than 6,100 likes and around 2,000 shares on Facebook.

The venue was one of many pubs, clubs and cafe's across the town to host part of Paisley's Music Week for the 2021 City of Culture bid, which saw a number of local acts perform - with Paolo's performance just adding to the entertainment.

Jen Sloan, owner of The Cave, spoke about her history with the singer and her shock at the video's success online.

She said: "I've known Paolo for a while and he just decided to come in and see how we were doing. The pub has only been up and running for around ten months so he just was up at the bar for a chat.

"You could see people looking when he walked in and thinking 'is that Paolo Nutini?'. He does come in now and again for a drink and people's reactions were great with a few people coming up asking for pictures.

"The band who were on stage, Wreckless, asked him to sing but he kept saying no and that it was their night - he didn't want to steal the spotlight from them. Eventually people began cheering his name and he got on stage - he is quite a shy guy but once he started singing he really goes for it and it's amazing."

She added she was surprised as to how much of a hit it was online. She said: "We were totally shocked. We asked him beforehand if we could put it online and he said no because he thought it would be rubbish but then after the buzz of performing he told us to put it up.

We never expected it would end up this big. We thought we would get a few likes and more likes on the bar's page, but nothing like this.

"I'm going to visit his dad at the chip shop tomorrow just to pass over our thanks again - it has really done the pub great and it was just amazing to have him in performing."