Photo: Jon Mo
Blossoms recently got nominated in the MTV European Music awards for 'Best Push' which is understandable given that in two years they've gone from an unknown band to reaching two weeks at number one in the album charts within two years.
The crowd here are loving it because it once again reveals the strength guitar pop has over less organic sounding stuff. They're held dearly like Arctic Monkeys are for keeping up the standards set by the likes of The Smiths, Oasis, and The Verve set for guitar bands coming from the North.
Singer Tom Ogden may be travelling the world with the band right now but he's still very much an ordinary guy from Stockport on stage. There's nothing fake about him. He recalls the excitement of growing up there, wryly saying: "We've got a hat museum. We've got a 24 hour Tesco's."Stockport, Stockport, Stockport!" is chanted among the London crowd such is the strength of their hometown's idenity on the mannerisms and accent of the five mates that have lived out of each others pockets for the last few years.
Tonight, Ogden's vocals sound far more on point than they were at Field Day earlier this summer, where they were slightly raspy. They are every bit as great as on the recordings, and the band have developed in the way that there's more semi-improvised escapist wigged-out sections in addition to powerful, lyrically direct pop hits. By not going routinely from song to song it makes the bangers more emphatic when they do arrive.
Impressively, there isn't one stand out hit that gets every one going much more than another. The crowd seem to know the words to every song allow the singer to step back from the microphone and let the crowd do the work in parts.
When they're most successful hit so far, 'Charlemagne' does arrive as their last song, a man next to me punches the air and shouts "Yes!" It's like his favourite football team have just scored and Blossoms should rest happy that they're making people feel this excited about music. Sky's the limit for these guys.
