While James Blake hasn’t been performing long enough to have established many precedents, it’s probably safe to say a Blake performance isn’t an event that breeds fisticuffs. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch, then, to assume San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall now holds the distinction of housing the first (last?) James Blake catfight.

It was a bizarre scene, with the London songwriter only three tunes into his long sold-out headlining show. There was no winning over left to be done; Blake’s live rendition of “I Never Learnt to Share”, featuring a heart-stopping dubstep sequence and a gorgeous looped vocal intro, completed what was left of that task. Three-fourths of the way through the song, a young lady who had had too much to drink got into it with a neighbor. Claws were swiped, hair was pulled, and song was ruined.

Blake ignored the incident and went on with the show, which meant a still-excited crowd missed the pretty piano solo that opened his cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You”. Fortunately, it was only two minutes ruined out of an hour-plus performance, and it was all pretty.

It’s hard to guess what a James Blake show will entail just by listening to the album or the EPs, but it’s easy to imagine just some dude playing tracks on his computer and singing into a vocoder. It is a dude, but he’s armed with a traditional keyboard as well as a synth with knobs galore — he generally takes turns between the two keyboards — and to his right sits a plenty capable rhythm section. As evident on Blake’s self-titled debut LP, he also has a voice on him, and while it often comes off as an Antony Hegarty impression, it’s a flawless one.

Blake charmed the S.F. crowd immediately, opening with “Unluck”. Everyone at the venue had bought tickets months in advance, and that anticipation was noticeable. When it came time for the encore, people abused the floorboards. That energy didn’t necessarily carry over well with Blake’s soft piano ballads, but for the most part the crowd was silent when called for.

On the LP, Blake’s music oozes with soul and bleeds sex. The soul translates live, but the sex appeal is non-existent. Naturally, this sort of disconnect will occur because Blake is no R. Kelly — this is a skinny, timid, 22-year-old white Englishman with neatly brushed hair we’re talking about. But beyond that, Blake turns his bedroom record into a different monster on stage. He and his backing band adorn “The Wilhelm Scream” with an imposing wall of sound, while Blake’s Feist cover “Limit to Your Love” is an experiment in loud/soft dynamics that puts the Pixies to shame. Neither inspired much dry-humping in San Francisco, but sometimes when you’re in awe of the limitless talent in front of you, you forget to dry-hump.

“This is a childhood dream, playing piano and singing in front of people,” he said late in the set. This may be an oversimplification of what Blake does and is capable of doing on stage, but the words rang true. For a guy who blew up before releasing his first album, who shares the stage with two childhood friends, and who is on his first tour of (and trip to) America, it’s not surprising that he verbalized his dream so modestly. He doesn’t have rock star blood, but surely he’s beginning to see some returns on his lovely little piano recitals.