The HMV forum, a hallowed proving ground for those lucky few taking the step up from scene kings to “proper rock stars and that”, sits snugly just up from Camden in Kentish Town and tonight plays host to an all-British line up that makes up a cross section of the “scene”.
First up this evening are recent Hassle Records signing BLITZ KIDS. Without any element of having the sound on their side at all this evening, they power through new and old alike and test their wares on a swelling crowd of early comers. By the end, the Forum’s filled a little and the sound settles, and the band look more and more comfortable on the bigger stages.
Next, Welsh Pop Punk hopefuls SAVE YOUR BREATH suffer a similar fate at the hands of the sound, but the increased crowd does them plenty of favours, and though their straight up pop punk might not be the perfect bit for the evening, they go down well and it’s yet another step up that they fully deserve.
Next, FRANCESQA, probably the most fitting of the support acts for tonight’s headliners, show off yet another facet of the UK scene, if perhaps not quite in the way that they’d have liked. Whether it’s because the band just don’t seem quite ready to take on the main support slot here, or because there’s just not quite enough of their material to keep interest, they seem to battle against attention spans throughout the set. That’s not to say they were bad, but after two bands that sound pretty different bringing stacks of energy, they fall a little flat.
KIDS IN GLASS HOUSES finish off the night with a triumphant set of material that largely avoids reaching back to album number one – a clear sign of how far they think they’ve come. It still stands that they haven’t written a bad record, and as the band play a headline set to a crowd the band could only have dreamed of a few years back, it is a little bit of a shame that the ‘Smart Casual’ era is so far in the past, but you really can’t blame the band for moving on. All the new material was made for nights like tonight, and with brass section in tow, it’s a great night for a band that’s going from strength to strength.
TOM AYLOTT
To see galleries from the night, click here