MATISYAHU is not the sort of character you expect to come across at a rock gig, never mind as the star of the show. An ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jew, 6ft 5in (1.96m) tall, from Brooklyn, New York, he arrives on stage in full regalia — black frock coat, long black beard, gold-rimmed spectacles and black, broad-brimmed hat.

His three-piece band begin with an abstract collage of sounds while Matisyahu chants wordlessly. It could almost be a call to prayer. As the song gradually builds up into a deep, rolling reggae groove, he starts to rap and then sing in an intense, passionate style, heavily influenced by Bob Marley. “If I had the wings of a dove, I’d find a way home,” he sings. The band hit a stride somewhere between the Wailers and the Police — a fusion of mainstream rock and educated reggae. Matisyahu twirls and jogs around the stage with increasing abandon during the guitar solo. At the end of the number he resets his hat at an angle that is more Clint Eastwood than man of the cloth. Welcome to the world of rabbi rock.

While the pop community prides itself on welcoming artists with supposedly alternative lifestyles and views into the fold, there are few performers offering such a radical departure from the rock’n’roll rulebook as that advocated by the 26-year-old Matisyahu, formerly known as Matthew Miller.

Drugs and alcohol are strictly off the menu. Work on the Sabbath is forbidden. He is not allowed physical contact of any kind with women who are not close family members. And the songs on his album, Youth, which recently peaked at No 4 in the American chart, are charged with biblical imagery and ringing declarations of his faith.

“Three thousand years with no place to be / And they want me to give up my milk and honey,” he sings in Jerusalem, a song that expresses unequivocal support for the aspirations of the Israeli people.

Seeing him perform it live, the fervour and passion of his delivery is unmistakable, and suggestions that he may be a novelty act are well wide of the mark. His show breathes new life into the reggae formula, a genre that has lain dormant in terms of mainstream pop appeal since the heyday of UB40 and the Police.

And as he sweeps into Youth, a spectacular, table-thumping anthem that clearly strikes a chord with the student crowd, his otherworldy charisma is spellbinding. If Marley could sell the often bizarre tenets of Rastafarianism via pop, there seems no reason why Matisyahu cannot do the same for his faith — and indeed the language is remarkably similar.

If so, he won’t be the first pop “messiah” whose fans have been swept along by the star’s commitment to his cause, while not necessarily signing up for the full manifesto.