SHORT on banter but high on charm, Editors take a little while to warm themselves up, slinking into proceedings with a sedate Sugar and a restrained (but entirely topical) Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors.
The Birmingham band, with the anthemic curve of U2 or The Killers mixed with a little bit of Coldplay-style stadium balladeering, move fluidly through their 90-minute set, some songs moving a little too seamlessly into others. You would pick an Editors song easily from a crowd; this is not always a good thing.
Although the five-piece perform with well-practised authority, certain songs throughout the set are a little understated, the honeyed muscularity of Tom Smith's voice failing to fly the distance over the moshpit and into the calmer back rows. It could be an energy issue, it could be a microphone at fault, but there are times when Smith and his two lively guitarists are vein-poppingly intense - others when they veer to the wrong side of louche. Overall, however, they are amenable hosts with a brisk trade in pacey drums and earworm hooks.
Around the time of a pretty and powerful Two Hearted Spider, An End Has A Start, Munich and the well-anticipated Racing Rats, the indie troupe come into their own with a spark to match the livid light display that battered the Barrowland Ballroom with colour. By the encore Smith is perched atop his piano, his lithe silhouette booming forth Nothing and then Papillon before a leap and a dash across the stage. Maybe such enticing drive would have been overwhelming from the get-go, but a little more pep would have given this solid gig a little needed lustre.
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