Athlete were in the studio for almost a year producing their third album ‘Beyond the Neighbourhood’, wary that extrapolation of their previous jump, from number 19 in the charts with Vehicles and Animals to number 1 in the charts with Tourist, would be a mission. The new album peaked at number 5 in the charts and the first single off the record entered the charts at 31 in august – disappointing on paper but then when have athlete really needed chart positions to demonstrate their popularity; practically a household name that have never had a number 1 single and with only one top 5 single to their name, you have one minute to give me a handful of bands that can make a similar claim! And did anyone at the Empire seem to care?! Ticket sales said to hell with the charts and the audience reactions definitely showed the Londoners that their home town will always give them a nice warm stage to call their own.

With the set dominated by songs from Vehicles and Animals and Tourist the gig-goers were singing all night and barely stood still. The mix of songs old and new demonstrated development of techniques and sounds they have perfected over the years, rather than a mash of new sounds some bands try to create with every new album – the set was fluid and flawless! Granted there was less of a chorus when new songs were being played but where other bands can guarantee the bar will be overwhelmed by revellers sneaking in a pint when the act deviates from classics, instead the crowd actually seemed appreciative of the new material and stuck to the stage throughout.

Delivery of every one of the songs was a demonstration of the maturity. The band have clearly developed over the 8 years they have been together and with the melodious, textured vocals of Joel Pott at the front of the stage the crowd were taken on an arousing and emotive journey; from songs such as Wires to One Million to Twenty Four Hours. Never one to focus on the front man of any band, I took an audio tour of the stage and couldn’t find a weakness in a single note played. Stephen Roberts on the drums was integral yet modest, athlete have never needed a strong drum beat to maintain their rhythm. Instead this was, in keeping with the traditional Athlete theme, sustained throughout the entire set by some wholly emotive keyboard playing by Tim Wanstall. Carey Willets upheld a quality bass line but the strings definitely climaxed when the two regular strummers joined forces with a newly recruited Jonny Pilcher to carry off some overwhelming and fiercely energetic instrumentals which actually took me a few seconds to realise were coming from the band that just had me embracing my more emo tendencies.

Ok, so indie music like Athlete’s isn’t fashionable anymore. Its got to be alternative, they have to play in bars only the ‘in crowd’ even know how to find and they can’t be known by more than 3 of your friends (known by anymore than 5 of your friends instantly makes them “oh so generic”). But I will find it hard to believe no matter how ‘scene’ you are that ‘Wires’ or ‘Beautiful’ have never done anything for you, or that you have never agreed at the top of your voice that “wherever you look you can see that everybody wants to be part of the rock scene”. The band looked like they were having as much fun as the audience and no over inflated egos were going to pollute the stage like they have for so many of the current and comeback bands of the past year. Athlete lack the pretension that so many indie bands tend to accumulate faster than they can grow their mop-tops which means that I could sing along with 1999 other people and not feel like I was being judged by a pair of skinny jeans.

Watching Athlete I just felt disappointed that I didn’t have every single one of my friends biting my hand off to come with me; your loss!