Before all that, the support bands. I missed the opening act Grammatics, kind of on purpose and kind of through bad planning. Listening to their stuff on MySpace, I wasn't all that impressed anyway, so I wasn't too upset to have missed them.
So, the first support band I saw were The Rascals. They are best mates with the Arctic Monkeys, having supported them on their last UK tour, the frontmen of both bands are making a new album together this year. Their set was not bad, with a few really good songs, and a few others that didn't stand out quite as much. The set was rounding off quite well, then for the last song, the singer introduced an unscheduled appearance from Alex Turner. To wild applause, he played guitar and sang on the final song, Is It Too Late - which uncoincidentally, was by far the best song they played. Having Alex Turner show up and play with you is a bit of a coup, eh?
Next band up were Black Kids, a band who I'd seen a bit of before, and been quite impressed. This time, I got to see the whole of their set, and it was excellent. They have a real "good time" sound, which is very reminiscent of The Go Team at times, but also reminds you of Arcade Fire at others. An initially sceptical and quiet crowd seemed to be totally won over by the end of the set, so it is fair to say that they went down really well. The kind of songs they make, I can see them doing really well at the summer's festivals, in the afternoons in tents, when people just want some music that they can have a good time listening to. I really enjoyed their set, and am looking forward both to hearing some records by Black Kids, and to seeing them again soon.Now that the support bands had finished, a quick word for the book called Velocity, by Dean Koontz. It must be a really good book, because a middle aged woman sat through all of the support acts reading it, never looking up at the stage at any point. Even when the lead singer of the Arctic Monkeys walked on stage to huge cheers, and even when the singer from Black Kids was behaving pretty crazily, she didn't look up from the book. But, as soon as the support acts finished, she got up like a shot, and went downstairs to the front. Strange behaviour from a middle aged woman.
The Pigeon Detectives came on for a set lasting just over an hour, and seemed very pleased to be back playing gigs again, after a break of a couple of months. Last time I saw them play a proper, electric gig, they seemed a bit subdued, but tonight they were on fire, and in full flow. The singer was bouncing around all over the place, in the crowd, and was chucking his microphone around all over the place. The set included all of the expected mental songs from the debut album, plus about 3 new songs, all of which sounded very promising.So, a good Pigeon Detectives set, up there with the best I've seen from them, although Glastonbury remains the best of the lot. The crowd at this gig was strange - lots of girls that seemed not to like music very much, although they had clearly heard a few of the bands' songs before. And, lots of twatty blokes that were up for fighting. At least one fight broke out in the crowd during the gig, there were lots of idiots around apart from that, and when a band starts to attract a following like that, you know it may be time to stop going to see them (see also: Kaiser Chiefs and Kasabian, and Arctic Monkeys to some extent). A shame, and TPD will do really well with their live show this year, but I left the venue feeling glad that I'd seen them at their best one last time, before the idiots take over completely.
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