Razorlight

Corr, Meatloaf’s lost weight! The mucky hair, retro-warbling and calorie-burning stage prancing is still intact but, man, I hope he plays ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ soon. I’m getting bored. What? Meatloaf’s next week? Who’s this then? Razorlight!? Are you kidding?

Yea, yea, Razorlight are headlining arenas these days, so they must be bloody brilliant etc. etc., but even ignoring the fact they simply flop in a venue this size, what with the lack of truly brilliant, stadium-sized hits, let’s take a closer look at their recent behaviour to expose them as the frauds they really are.

Their second album, ‘Razorlight’, was hard to hate outright. Having set out to tick every box required for what might be perceived as a classic album - eponymous, understated cover shot, post-modern song titles (accused: ‘Pop Song 2006), endlessly sentimental allusions to America with an all-too contrived Bruce Springsteen twist – the buggers just about pulled it off and we all clapped for them and said ‘well done’ to celebrate.



But as a photo of the band looking out over Brooklyn is super-imposed against their arena backdrop, their efforts debase themselves and it becomes apparent that the whole charade lacks any heart beyond its pounding ego – it’s little more than suggestive posturing.

Opening with a limp ‘In The Morning’, their show lugs along with the a cold insincerity that constantly dangles the idea of unforgettable momentum in your face, but never does anything to actually prove its worth.

‘Golden Touch’ and ‘Don’t Go Back To Dalston’ play out well enough as songs in their own right, but overall the show lacks the depth required to set the switches blazing. Nowhere in the crowd are teenagers riding out pangs of empathy or emotion, thinking “This song really speaks to me”, as Johnny Borrell works only for himself, the majority of tracks surmounting to tales of his skirt-chasing antics, expressed in vague, self-satisfied terms, attempting to give the whole thing an aura of mystery that after an hour of exposure, doesn’t really wash. There’s lots of pissed skinheads, fighting.



‘America’ is the closest things get to epic, but they still don’t quite break open the venue roof. A crap encore of ‘Somewhere Else’ wraps the show up, but the fact people are already leaving before they return to the stage shows that, really, there’s nothing special going on here tonight. So average is the show, it’s not even fun writing a review of them. So I’ll end it here. Goodnight.

FUTURE GIGS