The Automatic, Mumm-Ra - Astoria, London - Thursday 19th October 2006

Almost immediately after landing back from Belgium, I headed straight for the Astoria, to see The Automatic. Tickets for this were bought after being very impressed by the band at an NME Tour in May. Since then, their single Monster has been on the radio pretty much all summer, and their album, which is not bad, has also been released.

The main support band were Mumm-Ra, who I have to say I thought were excellent. Their songs were vaguely reminiscent of Idlewild and the Boo Radleys, poppy guitar-based tunes that were pretty catchy all round. They entertained for half an hour or so, and they are definitely worth checking out both on MySpace, and if they are playing support at a future gig.

Because of the early curfew at the Astoria when the G-A-Y nights are on, the Automatic came on stage at around 9pm. They played for around 50 minutes, then for a short encore, and the audience seemed to be going mad for every minute. When the mental keyboard player (who looks and acts unnervingly like John Lydon used to) came on stage, there were screams from young female members of the audience. A mainstream band indeed - I wonder if their parents bought the tickets for them.

The Automatic sounded good, but I have to say that they were not especially exciting. In particular, many of the songs sounded exactly as they sound on the album. The grinding "motorbike" guitars sounded better live, but the whole performance was very polished, very well-drilled, and lacking in a bit of spontaneous rebellion because of it. The kids loved it, of course, but I couldn't help thinking that it was all a bit too clean-cut for my liking.

At one point in the set, the band played a cover of Kayne West's Gold Digger, which was pretty pointless I thought, as well as not being very good. However, I was reminded that it was nowhere near as bad as Hard-Fi's cover of Seven Nation Army, so it wasn't all bad!

The gig was worth the money, which was only £11.50, but it did seem a bit sterile and polished for my liking. A good band, but they are too effectively replicating the radio-friendlyness of songs when they play live, and that took away from the excitement for me a little bit.