Given all this, I was very pleased to be avoiding all of the plastic Scousers in London, and instead going to see the Pigeon Detectives play some of their excellent songs. Last time I had really enjoyed their show - with the album out in 5 days, and a significantly bigger show at the Astoria, it promised to be a cracker.
When I got into the venue, a band called Cheap Hotel were playing. They had 2 female guitarists, one of whom also sang some vocals. Their songs were extremely average at best, and their final song was introduced as their new single. Not sure how many they were hoping to sell, but I don't think it will be all that many. The most worrying thing about them was that the bassist was wearing a t-shirt with the name of a band on it. This in itself is not too bad, except that it was one of their own band's t-shirts. How poor is that - by all means wear a nice Strokes t-shirt or something, but don't wear one with the name of your own (crap) band on the front!
Anyway, on to the main support band, who were Air Traffic. Having seen them a couple of times before, most recently at the Camden Crawl last month, I kind of knew what to expect. They played a set which was heavy on their singles, both past and future. The band really go for it on stage, and it is very clear that they are giving their performance everything - which helps to transmit some enthusiasm to the crowd also. But, the basic problem with them is that their songs are very safe, radio-friendly (and Radio 2 at that) ditties - not rock and roll at all, and not even all that inspiring. They are really like a new version of Keane, with the addition of a lead guitarist. This addition makes them better than Keane (generally, adding guitars tends to make bands better in my experience), but fundamentally, they are still just like Keane. Which is not good. The band give it their all when playing live, which means that watching them is much better than listening on Radio 2. But, try as I might, I just cannot muster that much enthusiasm for them. They are like a band that were formed with the specific purpose to open up at Keane gigs forever. They will probably be very commercially successful, and make massively more money than I ever will - but I cannot bring myself to like them very much (not that they will care, obviously, especially with all that money they'll make). The tunes are OK, quite catchy, quite nice to listen to, but I will leave that to others. Good luck boys, we were just never meant to be compatible.
When the Pigeon Detectives came onto the stage, they ploughed straight into Romantic Type - one of their previous singles, and in my opinion their best song. By the time the song had finished, the singer had already dived into the crowd to sing one chorus, and several drinks had landed on stage. Quite a beginning, and I feared that they had wasted the best song and biggest excitement at the start of the set.Luckily this wasn't the case, the set carried on with good song after good song for a while after that! I said last time I saw the Pigeon Detectives that the live show, and especially the manic behaviour from the singer, really makes this band very different live to on CD - you have to see them live to really get what they are all about. This show was no different, as the singer darted around the stage, continually throwing the microphone up in the air, jumping around, then catching it again in time for the next lines of the song. Or at least that was the plan. He seemed quite pissed this time around, so a number of songs were punctuated by the sound of a mic landing on the floor, half a line missed, then the resumption of the song once the mic was retrieved again!
Most of the new album was showcased in this set, which was generally fantastic throughout. One thing I liked was that, with 2 songs to go, the singer announced that the band are not the sort to do encores, but that they had 2 songs left. That almost made it like an encore, as people knew they were coming to the end of the set. And the band didn't have to bother leaving the stage! Eventually, the last song was current single I'm Not Sorry - the energy of the band's larking on stage, the frontman especially (who is absolutely crazy), never fails to get the audience fired up, and the songs are good enough to ensure a fantastic time is had by all. Another very good gig, by a band I would highly recommend.
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