The Subways - Koko, London - Wednesday 11th June 2008

Three years ago The Subways were a great new band, and they seemed like their rise would be unstoppable. Their songs were brilliant, they were utterly incendiary live, they were fast tracked into Glastonbury and they even supported Oasis, on more than one occasion. They had an exciting dynamic - cemented by the fact that the singer and bassist were a teenage couple - that no other band had. They could have been huge, but since then, it all seems to have gone wrong.

Tonight, the band arrived on stage as a totally different proposition. They have made what can only be described as a "difficult" second album, after a near 3 year gap that has made many forget that they ever existed. And they have taken a very different direction with their new sound, moving away from the NME indie sound, towards the Kerrang stable of heavy metal lite bands. Something which is only likely to divide their former fans, and risk shunting them into more of a niche. The young couple have even split up since their exciting early days, although they are both still in the band.

Never mind all that, the band arrived on stage to a rapturous reception, singer Billy appearing bare chested, and staying that way throughout. As expected, the set was a pretty even mix between old songs, to which the crowd went mad; and new songs, which were received politely but somewhat more mutedly. As if to underline the Kerrang alignment, Billy seemed to adopt a very strange "American rock star" accent during songs, reminiscent of when I saw Ozzy Osbourne last year. Of course, between songs, he reverted to his real accent, that of a fairly polite 21 year old from Hertfordshire. Most bemusing why the American rock god accent was put on.

All this said, The Subways did a lot of things very well. Billy constantly apologised for the gap between the last album and tour, and this one - caused in fairness by a pretty nasty illness that he suffered. When they played Oh Yeah, it was just like old times, a scintillating few minutes. And the stage dives, speaker climbing and general hyper activeness of old was still there in abundance. In general, the old songs sent the audience mental, and you could see plenty of bodies jumping and flying around the venue.

But despite how good the old songs sounded, and how great it was to hear them again, and see everybody going crazy to them, it just seemed like there was something missing. The newer songs are generally not a patch on the older stuff, and that definitely showed through in the audience's reaction to them. The band also seemed to be missing much of the spontaneous, fresh, excitement that they had when they first appeared. I guess that some of this shouldn't be too much of a surprise, but after being so exciting when they first arrived, The Subways are "just another band" now - and I think they'll struggle to recapture what they had with some of their excellent early songs.