Jet / The Blue Van / The Checks

Jet’s date at the Manchester Apollo comes four months to the day since the band were last in town and with each visit, the gig venues they play seem to grow exponentially larger. November saw the group at Manchester University’s Academy 1 venue and this time around, at the 3500 capacity Apollo Theatre.

Unfortunately, I arrived too late to catch the beginning of the set from opening band The Checks. This New Zealand five piece are another in a production line of dirty modern blues inspired rock groups coming out of the Antipodes, but despite their old school sound and early start, they still had heads nodding throughout the venue.

Second band to perform were Denmark’s The Blue Van and this hirsute bunch of guys really (and there’s no other word for it) rocked. Never have so many 70’s style guitar poses been thrown in such a short period of time and their leaps from speakers, keyboards...whatever they could find to jump off, really got the crowd cheering.

On Keys, Soren Christensen seemed to play with just the palms of his hands but he still managed to somehow produce a great jangly electric Doors style sound. The style of The Blue Van is classic Rhythm & Blues (a cover of ‘Baby Please don’t Go’ even found it’s way into the set among the original tracks) with a bit of British 60’s Rock a la The Who and The Kinks thrown in.

Playing after a band with such stage presence and enthusiasm left Jet a lot to follow on from. After a long instrumental build up accompanied by several minutes of eye popping strobes, the band mooched onto the stage to a stupendous roar from the crowd - though it still seemed to take a little while for the audience to really start letting their hair down.



After such a successful debut release with ‘Get Born’ in 2003, it looked for a while like Jet may be a one Album wonder, but with the 2006 release of follow up LP ‘Shine On’, the band have cemented their international popularity and have to be counted as one of Australian music’s top modern day success stories.

Jet obviously wear their nationality with pride, having had the Australian flag painted onto their backdrop, but their sound is fundamentally that of the great British bands from the 60’s – The Faces, The Who, The Stones and course The Beatles.

Perhaps it was the Manchester setting, but lead singer Nic Cester seemed to be channelling the spirit of Liam Gallagher in his on stage persona on Sunday night, both with his swagger and some cheeky comments like "4 million copies sold, check it out", but the crowd love a rock star and there’s no denying this front man truly is one.


For their guitar heavy sound, it actually seemed to be their ballads about a third of the way into the show that finally got the crowd off the slow boil. Tracks like ‘Move On’ and ‘Look What You’ve Done’ had the whole audience singing along word for word at a volume load enough to drown out the band. After that, the atmosphere inside the sold out venue clicked into gear and their big singles from ‘Get Born’ (still Jet's best) ‘Roll Over DJ’ and of course ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ took it up that extra notch still.

Bassist Mark Wilson seems to actually be the most dynamic on stage and Chris Cester on Drums sings backing vocals with such force that it looks like the veins on his neck are going to burst, but for all his posturing and the occasional climb onto the drum kit, lead singer Nic is still fairly laid back in his approach.



While the audience (complete with old school lighters, none of this lit up mobile phone malarkey) obviously enjoyed the night, there’s still something a little bit lacking in Jet’s performance. Damned if I know what it is though. The band sounds great, the songs are catchy, but there’s still something stopping Jet going from ‘good’ to becoming a ‘not to be missed’ live experience.... (But keep an eye out for The Blue Van. Whatever that elusive element is, that band has it in bucket loads).

FUTURE GIGS

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