Foster the People

So, part 2 of my weekend gig plan - Foster the People at Brixton Academy. A better night than the previous on many accounts - I was going with friends, its a better venue and I didn't go in the middle of a monsoon.

First support were an American band (as were all the bands on the bill) "We Are Barbarians". As with a curious number of supports, they were hesitant to actually tell us who they were, as if it was some sort of state secret. However, in the world of pocket electronic devices we tracked down who they were via modern technology. Quite good really. Would happily go and see them on their own sometime.

We were less impressed by Mini-Mansions that followed. Not sure I agreed with all of Jenny's criticisms of the lead singer, leather trousers, curtains, arrogance and the fact that he stood to play drums. Lead guitar looked like a young Abraham Lincoln, keyboardist like a young Donny Osmond. I was actually warming to them until they did a cover of Blondie's Heart of Glass. If you can imagine a song being tortured on the rack, this was it.

So much for the hors d'oeuvres, for the main menu we had Foster the People. A new band, their debut album only came out last year, but still they sold out Brixton. Now one might question the humility of a man who names his band after himself, Mark Foster being lead singer and a decent musician too, forming Foster the People. Nice poppy indie band, but with only the one album behind them, the concert did feel a little stretched out. Not exactly slick changes between tracks, but on the plus side Mark Foster is a great front man. A good-looking bloke, but not quite good-looking enough to have justified the shrieking gaggle of girls behind me. So odiously teeny-bopper were they that the bouncers actually came to tell them to shut up. If they wanted to go to a Take That concert they should have saved up their pennies. I am quite happy to have my ears ringing from bass or feedback, but not screaming teenagers.

Another sign, in my view, of the paucity of their material (in volume rather than quality) was that they hauled on a guest for one song, Luke Pritchard of the somewhat more established The Kooks.

But they inevitably finished on their big singalong hit, Pumped Up Kicks, accompanied by plenty of glitter pumped into the audience. And we all went home happy. And tonight, I went home dry too. Bonus. And nice to have met Jenny's boyfriend - a very jolly accountant. Not, clearly, a contradiction in terms.