The Pigeon Detectives, The Metros, The Rascals - Islington Academy, London - Tuesday 29th April 2008

After a short break to write and record their new album, the Pigeon Detectives are back, set to release their second album a year (almost) to the day after their first. Early indications are that it will be another cracker, if lead single This Is An Emergency is anything to go by. This gig was put on by MTV2 to film a few bands for TV, and came less than a week before the Pigeons were due to play 2 big sold out gigs in Leeds Millennium Square. When we got into the venue, we were very pleased to find that the upstairs bar was open, anybody was allowed in, and nobody seemed to know it existed - this meant a bar with no queues, and a perch on the balcony to watch all the action.

First band on were The Rascals, who also supported the Pigeon Detectives last time I saw them. Sadly, there was no appearance from Alex Turner this time, but the band seemed to cope OK without him! They came on stage very early, which meant that I (and most others) missed the first few songs, but their set was well received. I'm not sure I quite "get" The Rascals, some of their songs are OK, but others seem distinctly average to me - and the singer occasionally sounds like the singer from The Coral (not a good thing). They are clearly a good band when they play live - they look and sound very exciting - but I'm not quite sure that they have the quality and depth of songs to match. Set closer Is It Too Late is a standout song, but there aren't too many more where that came from.

Next on were The Metros, a band that I'd also seen recently and been a bit disappointed by. This time, they were a million times better than the last time I saw them, helped in large part by decent sound instead of crap sound. They had a devoted band of fans at the front of the crowd, and rattled through a set of 10 or so songs that seemed to be over before you knew it. But they seemed to be another band that put on a great live show, are very good at playing their instruments, but don't seem to have the songs to match. The second song of their set, Last Of The Lookers, plus the final 2 songs, Education Part II and Live A Little were the clear highlights of the set. These are really good songs, but there is little else to match that quality. Their sound is very reminiscent of The Ordinary Boys (and they attract fans who also like them), and to some extent The Holloways, and I suspect they will probably be similarly successful - a popular niche band that don't quite break out to the mainstream.

Maybe the Pigeon Detectives had been watching the football, as they came on stage about 10 minutes after the final whistle. Kicking off with This Is An Emergency, then I Found Out, it was clear that the singer was up for the gig, and also fairly clear that the crowd was a band of enduring devotees, rather than some of the more idiotic fans that have come along lately. There was moshing, there was crowdsurfing, but there didn't seem to be too many fools there.

The set was drawn almost equally from the old and new albums, and the new songs sounded reassuringly and instantly familiar. Maybe that's because the style was not all that different from the older songs, and many of the new songs were "more of the same" from the Pigeon Detectives. However, many were also more complex, more developed, and more mature than anything on their first album. Songs like Making Up Numbers and You Don't Need It were among the best I've ever heard from this band, and are true classics in the making. They will sound great when the band play venues like Alexandra Palace and bigger, as I think this album will mean they can.

The influences in the Pigeon Detectives songs are also clearly growing. The aforementioned You Don't Need It has a riff straight out of a Strokes song, and Nothing To Do With You is the Pigeons equivalent of the Foo Fighters' Big Me, but in their own style of course. And all of this is bound together by probably the best frontman in the country at the moment, Matt Bowman. It occurred to me halfway through the set that the other 4 band members could walk past me in the street, and I wouldn't know who they were - I never look at them during gigs, because you just have to keep watching the singer.

Lets not forget the older songs in this gig too, because Romantic Type, I'm Not Sorry and the rest all sounded fantastic here as well. Releasing so much material in such a short space of time seems to keep everything sounding fresh as well - we are lucky to have 2 bands around at the moment (Arctic Monkeys being the other), who are extremely prolific in their output, and keep the great songs coming and coming. This was a very good gig in itself, but as the first big showcase for the new album, was an extremely exciting taste of things to come - the new album seems to be even better than their debut, and significant fame should now be beckoning.