The View, Underground Heroes - Forum, Tunbridge Wells - Saturday 9th September 2006

After the annoyance of the football, I went to Tunbridge Wells Forum, to see The View. There is a good deal of hype surrounding them at the moment, and they have some very high-profile support slots lined up later in the year. I have even heard them called the "new Oasis". Their single Wasted Little DJs has been all over MTV2 for the last month or so, so all in all they are one of THE buzz bands in the UK right now.

The crowd in the venue was surprisingly old, given that the Forum is usually a key haunt for 15-year-olds. There were a good number of people of drinking age there! Support band for the evening were Underground Heroes, a band from Kent that are playing a few support slots with The View on this tour. They were very impressive, quite mental, and sounded not unlike the Ordinary Boys I thought. The venue was heating up throughout their set, so by the end they were a very sweaty band. I could see them doing well, they certainly had a number of songs that sounded great.

The View came on at around 10:15, suggesting that they would play quite a short set. They sounded tight, and some of their songs certainly hit the heights, in particular Posh Boys and their new single Superstar Tradesmen. My first thought when they came on was "Wow, they look young!" (the second thought was "wow, they look cool"), which I guess is not too surprising because they are all teenagers still. They had songs aplenty to keep the set bouncing along with great energy. As the set got towards the end, Wasted Little DJs sent the place completely mad. They went off at about 10:50, did no encore, and left everybody very sweaty but wanting to see them play all over again.

On reflection having seen them, they do have some songs that could make them a significantly successful band in the months to come. But, I did feel that, in a venue like the Forum (200 capacity, and an audience that was won over before they even came on), that they could/should have looked like they belonged in a different league to a venue like this - and they didn't quite. Clearly they will be deservedly playing much bigger places soon, but I was expecting them to take the roof off a venue like the Forum. Maybe they are so raw and exciting that they aren't quite polished enough to do that just yet.

Let that not take anything away from this band though, they sounded great, and have a setful of great tunes. They will go far.