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Being the support band on a lengthy arena tour may not sound like much fun but it appears there is little that can dampen the spirits of We Are Scientists, who stride onstage, promptly strip to the waist and generally act like they’re delighted to be playing to a horde of people who react with either disinterest or bemusement. Even the recent departure of drummer Michael Tapper doesn’t seem to have affected their slick, jagged rock, nor the usual comedy banter that Keith Murray and Chris Cain indulge in.
With new drummer Adam Aaronson in place and the lineup bolstered by extra guitarist Max Hart, the group quickly ricochet through ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Gets Hurt’ and ‘It’s A Hit’ before working through new material. What’s played sounds a bit more blunt and straightforward rock than the spikier edges that were on 'With Love And Squalor', though sill keeping a danceable edge. Unfortunately, for all Scientists charm their music does not particularly work in a cavernous arena like the SECC and it all comes across a bit flat. Although there’s a few dancing, and the atmosphere is never hostile the Americans struggle to really make a mark for themselves and while the closing ‘The Great Escape’ does manage to generate a reaction it’s too late, and Scientists have been swamped by the sheer size and emptiness of the hall.
For the Kaiser Chiefs, such problems are a long way in the past. They’re now a band for whom arenas are getting too small, as evidenced by the announcement of a gig at Elland Road next year. The stage set up looks the part too, with five monitors perched on the top of the set and a walkway behind the band giving Ricky Wilson more room to run around like a hyperactive child racing downstairs on Christmas morning to find out what presents Santa has left him.
Of the band, it’s Wilson that’s the most entertaining to watch. He scampers around, clambering up whatever he can be find and repeatedly leading the crowd in the numerous sing-a-longs that break out. He’s also involved in one of the gigs highlights, where he disappears offstage, only to re-appear at the mixing desk at the back of the hall and provide vocals to a frantic ‘Temperature’ from there. And in many ways the Kaisers music is actually suited to monolithic buildings like the SECC. It’s big, bold and its easy to join in with the vocals, especially on the pristine pop that is ‘Ruby’ and the lengthy bouncing version of ‘Oh My God’ that closes the night, the latter a song that now has indie classic stamped through it.
However there’s another reason why attention is focused on Wilson throughout and it’s one of the flaws that plagues the Leeds five piece. Mainly, at least Wilson moves about while the others stand playing like sinister robots designed to replicate a band, but without any sort of personality. They’re criminally dull to actually watch and the big screens only draw attention to the fact that they apparently desire an anonymity that only a canoe trip in Hartlepool can provide.
Some of the material is as prosaic as the poses from the indie by numbers of ‘Thank You Very Much’ to the tedious ‘Modern Way’, which somehow manages to be more boring in flesh than on record. The rocky thud of ‘The Angry Mob’ was probably written in crayon, such is its combination of simplistic lyrics and mundane melody and the longer the set goes on the more the band’s lack of fresh ideas becomes apparent. Not that the crowd mind, roaring along throughout. But the whole set is so dragged out and dull that it gives the impression that never mind Na Na Na Na, the Kaiser Chiefs are merely very blah.
