Razorlight, Good Shoes, The View - Barfly, London - Sunday 15th October 2006

This is one of those gigs, like the Magic Numbers at the Buffalo Bar, Arctic Monkeys at the Leadmill, or The Kooks at Tunbridge Wells Forum, that I feel truly honoured to have attended. Tickets sold out in about 5 seconds, and were changing hands on eBay for £400 a pair in the week leading up to the gig. Even better to have paid the £10 face value to get in.

The kind folks at the Barfly finally let us in from the freezing cold at about 7:45, and we made our way upstairs to the gig room. Taking up a position on the right hand wall (which the band have to walk along in order to get on stage), I decided to camp there for the evening, for some good celebrity spotting action.

First band on were The View, and I was seeing them for the second time in 24 hours. They were amazing at Brixton the previous night, and even better tonight. They blew the house down this time, for sure. The songs sounded fantastic, and the band played them like they were loving every single minute of it. Of course they could be headlining venues at least 20 times the size of this one, and on this evidence, it won't be long before they are doing just that. Absolutely amazing live band, I would see them again tomorrow (and the next day, and the next day) if I could. Quite possibly the most exciting band in the UK right now.

The next band were Good Shoes, who I'd heard a couple of songs by before. Their set reminded me a lot of Art Brut, lots of clever lyrics, and the singer in particular looks like a very nerdy man indeed. Quite like a teacher in fact, with no disrespect to teachers intended. The set plodded along OK, but there were few points that raised real excitement, and the singles were very obvious standout songs. They are being tipped for great things, but to be honest, they didn't really excite me very much at all.

At about half past ten, putting many people in danger of missing trains home, some very burly bouncers emerged into the room, and Razorlight were ushered on stage. Predictably, the place went completely and utterly mental. They launched straight into In The Morning, and pretty much the entire venue became a mosh pit. An hour later, and a sweat-soaked venue had witnessed a truly amazing gig. This is what the NME thought of it.

It really struck me throughout this show, how very good Razorlight are when they play live. I tend to think that most bands sound better live than on record, but Razorlight sound very, very, very much better live. Especially when you consider the Radio-2-friendlyness of some of their songs, like Golden Touch and America, those songs really do rock when they play them live. There is an undoubted sense that Johnny Borrell is probably something of a primadonna, and I'd imagine that it would be an awful job to have to stroke his pride and ego every day - but the band sound fantastic, and he is a mesmerising frontman.

Razorlight have sold out a mammoth UK tour later in the year - 2 nights at Wembley Arena being the London contribution to that - so it was a rarity and a pleasure to see them in such a small venue. They are so well-honed as a live band, sound so excellent, and their new songs are so good, that this forthcoming tour should propel them to truly huge status.

Finally, a picture of the iconic (if slightly self-obsessed) frontman.