Bands: Mumm-Ra, The Horrors, The View and The Automatic
Venue: Carling Academy Brixton, London
Date: Friday 23rd February, 2007
Time: 6.00 p.m. (Doors)

NME can bring together big names - but they don't know how to put on a show...

Prior to the ShockWaves NME Awards 2007, NME have sent some of Britain's biggest bands on the Indie Rock and Indie Rave Tours. Headlining the Indie Rock Tour - the last night of which I attended - were The Automatic.

I arrived about 10 minutes after the time it gave on the ticket, thinking I was running late, but by the lack of a heaving crowd I realised straight away I would be in for a wait. My attendance of proper music gigs, as opposed to going to see friends' bands live, is somewhat limited, so I realised this early arrival was a rookie's error. So buying myself a drink, I staked my territory behind one of the barriers, about 10 rows back, with a reasonably good view of the stage, (until Mr Tall stood in front of me a few hours later). There I remained for the duration, feeling my chances of standing for 5 hours were best aided by leaning on the barrier.

A tedious wait ensued, until finally the screens that broadcast on loop a couple of incomplete music videos, a Skins trailer, brief interviews with music stars and NME Awards voting details in text too small to be read, all irritatingly without sound as the venue pumped out indecipherable music, seemingly without lyrics and not entirely fitting the event, cut out. At about 7.30 on came Mumm-Ra.

A generic jazzy instrumental track introduced Mumm-Ra, (great name for Thundercats fans), to the stage and it was, unfortunately, arguably a highlight of the night. Mumm-Ra were not particularly memorable. They certainly were not terrible, but it was not until their last three tracks, including What Would Steve Do?, (I think, the vocals and links were mostly lost throughout the entire night owing to poor sound production), that they seemed to get going. The lead singer spun a plastic duck on a stick at one point, which was nice...Then they were gone - and the audience were left to stand and wait through a very slow turn-over between bands.

Next came The Horrors, blinding everyone with strobes. I have a theory that if you resort to strobes as oppose to just flashing lights, then you are clearly trying to distract from the frailties of your song - and the word 'song' is to be used losely when referring to The Horrors' offerings. There are no two ways about it - they were terrible, receiving least the applause of the night and the worst comments after the show. Shouty incoherent noises have got them surprisingly far in the music world, but their appeal to the audience seemed to be restricted to the small crowd of young teenage boys doing all that pointy stuff in the swarm closest to the stage. I feel old. I did like the black balloons the lead 'singer' held pretty much throughout their set. After The Horrors' anarchic performance of utter trite, the audience were left stood again 'entertained' again only by the screens playing their soundless loop accompanied by incongruent music.

The crowd swelled in readiness for The View and indeed their set saw a marked improvement in musical quality. Sadly, the vocals were still heavily distorted coming out of the banks of speakers. My objectivity in assessing how good they were or not became clouded as I realised I was enjoying them as much because they were better than The Horrors as for the merits of their own music. The crowd reacted positvely, crowd-surfing going up at this point, so I assume they were good.

Frustrated again by another slow turn-over and distracted by an erupting wisdom tooth, I was quite bored by the whole night by the time headliners The Automatic arrived on stage. The crowd had thinned since The View performed - with a notable mass departure of older members of the audience. Clearly songs like Monster have fixed The Automatic to the younger end of the market. However, their performances were energetic and entertaining enough, particularly Monster which gains power performed live and gets the crowd going, and they certainly rounded off the tour in style as their fellow performers joined them on the stage for their last song. (In the writing of this review, I came across this on You Tube which is worth a look, especially if you are already familiar with the video that accompanies Monster.)

Now, my familiarity with the bands may be partly to blame. I know The Automatic's singles, have heard The View in passing, know of Mumm-Ra and had not heard of The Horrors. However, if they were truly astonishing, I should not have to know their songs in advance to appreciate them live. I have seen many an unsigned band live better than The Horrors. The audience were left to stand for too long at various stages throughout the night, (clearly an attempt to get the drinks sales up), with no entertainment and I was not alone in my dissatisfaction, as the comments I overhead upon leaving and getting the tube home proved. Not all bad, but certainly a wasted opportunity. Let's hope next year's line-up of bands is more promising.