The Subways, The Rifles - Astoria, London - Wednesday 5th October 2005

A trip to the Astoria, partly as a warm up for tomorrow's Arctic Monkeys gig, but also to see The Subways on their first UK tour since their album came out. Having seen the band a few times earlier in the year, I was interested to see how they would go down in front of a big audience that by now had heard the majority of their material.

I arrived early, and went to bag a table upstairs in the venue - right at the front of the balcony.

Support band The Rifles were very polished, and played an excellent set which went down very well indeed. Definitely one to watch, and I'll be looking to see them in a smaller venue some time soon. Most of their songs were good, with a couple of real standout tracks that had the whole crowd going.

The Subways have been doing this for a while now - obviously what they get up to seems less surprising and spontaneous the more they do it, but they have done very well to keep the punk rock feeling, whilst performing on cue at much bigger gigs.

In a set which ran through most of the new album, the band absolutely rocked throughout, and were very very good indeed.

At the end of the set, the singer went for a climb of the speaker stack. Funny, because when he got to the top, it looked like he was shitting himself!! Still, he got used to it up there, played a few riffs, jumped off, and finished with a blisteringly loud version of "Rock and Roll Queen".

This is a band that seems to be able to cope with all the hurdles their career has thrown at them so far. A great band, long may they continue to succeed!