Glasvegas, Friendly Fires, White Lies, Florence & The Machine - Brixton Academy, London - Saturday 21st February 2009

This show was the finale to the now traditional NME tour, which takes some of the best new bands out around the country. At least, the best new bands in NME's opinion, that they are actually able to book. This often provides the chance to see absolute gems of bands like Arctic Monkeys, Maximo Park, and The Cribs - but also gives the dubious pleasure of The Horrors, Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong, and other bands that may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but rapidly start to not look so clever. However, the line up this year looked like the best for a few years, at least at the time the shows happened.

First band of the evening were Florence & The Machine, a six piece who were fronted by a tall ginger woman. She ran on stage wearing an incredibly short skirt, revealing that about 2/3 of her height was made up of legs. She was fresh from winning the Critics Choice award at the BRITs the previous week, and has appeared in virtually every list of the acts that will do well in 2009. So, expectations were high.

Florence & The Machine's set was possibly the one I enjoyed most in the evening, partly because my expectations were comfortably exceeded. Her voice was nothing short of incredible, and it is this that really is the standout thing about the band. The songs were decent enough, but Florence is the kind of singer who can make a song that is merely "good", sound "great". She also seemed to have a good rock and roll spirit, dancing crazily around the stage, throwing flowers into the audience, and generally seeming to enjoy herself. The band finished on a fantastic cover of You've Got The Love, a song that you need an amazing voice to do justice to - and they blew the roof off the venue. A really enjoyable set, far too short when it finished after half an hour.

Next up were White Lies, who I'd seen a few months ago and really liked. Since then, they had scored a number one album, and started to sell out headline gigs in decent sized venues. Their set was therefore totally expected in its excellence - their sound was again massive, and they really play with a confidence that they expect to be playing big venues very soon. The comparisons with The Killers, Joy Division and Interpol are all obvious - perhaps the quality of their songs is the only thing I'm still not sure about. There was a great moment in their set when Florence (minus the Machine) ran on stage to duet on a chorus, then dived into the crowd when she was done. Despite the fact that the 2 singers were in a completely different key, it was a good cameo. So, a great set again from White Lies, they are a sure bet to be back at Brixton as headliners later in the year.

The final support band were Friendly Fires, who are not really my cup of tea. I'd seen them at the Camden Crawl a couple of years ago, and whilst they make a nice noise, I wasn't totally enthused. I'm not generally much of an "indie rave" fan at the moment in any case, which means I'm always going to be unlikely to like them. What was hard to understand at this gig was why they were on the bill (other than it being a collection of decent new bands) - because the contrast between them and White Lies or Glasvegas was huge. Still, a testament to the eclectic nature of the NME Tour I guess. Their set was decent enough, but just not my cup of tea really - although I suspect at a festival, they would be much more enjoyable.

So, finally, Glasvegas. Their live shows and their fantastic debut album had ensured that they were rightly headlining this tour, but the event seemed to be a bit of a disappointment for me. The "wall of noise" wasn't there (and generally the bands seemed to be a bit quiet tonight). That took a lot of intensity away from the set, and meant that, whereas previously the guitars could have almost literally blown you away, they were now just one part of the songs. Also, there were a lot of non-believers around me, by that I mean people who didn't really seem to "get" why Glasvegas are so hyped.

Having said all that, of course it was an enjoyable set, kicking off with Geraldine, starting to wind down with Go Square Go, and finishing up with Daddy's Gone - fantastic songs all of them. But, I just felt that something had been lost in the band's transition to the bigger venues they undoubtedly deserve to be playing - some volume, some intensity, and a bit of the excitement of knowing that everybody in the audience was converted to the excellence of Glasvegas. Good gig, but I hope that some of these things return before I see them next.