Wednesday 29/03/06 Matt Willis @ The Scala, London

While Charlie Simpson went emo/rock with Fightstar, James Bourne’s gone mock American with Son of Dork, Matt Willis is the final member of the Busted brigade to launch a new career. The boy more famous for his tabloid exploits with women and alcohol abuse than anything else has always taken every opportunity to bore people about his love of ‘real’ punk music, but his output always owes more to the glossy corporate pop-rock of recent Green Day than it does to, say, Rancid. With one eyebrow raised over what exactly the result of such influences might be (he does share McFly’s manager y’know), we trundled along to his very first showcase knowing we’d be entertained with free drinks, if nothing else.

With a stage emblazoned with his large ‘MW’ radio wave-esque logo, there was no messing about as Matt took to the stage with his first single, the furious ‘Up All Night’.  Although sporting a small amount of ‘serious artist’ chin hair, he looks much the same as always and Robbie comparisons were easy from his energetic jumping around the stage to the cheeky chappy glint in his eye.  In fact Robbie comparisons were so easy that we began to feel like it was 1997 all over again, and this was an album track from 'Life Thru A Lens.'

Slowing it down with the Green Day-lite ‘Luxury’, it’s hard to not notice Willis’ backing band.  The overenthusiastic bassist hams it up as much as possible tossing some crazy hairstyle everywhere, while a fellow guitarist plays with such intensity that it’s almost like he’s channelling the spirit of Brian May at a Wembley gig. Despite this, it’s pretty obvious that a lot of backing vocals and indeed instrument is on tape. Top points for acting though guys. Now Matt isn’t in a ‘boy band with guitars’ he certainly isn’t afraid to swear and liberally drops “****ings” into nearly every sentence.  It’s just like being at a party with that boy at school who always wanted to be the cool, grown up one.  The crowd are warm though, and despite the centre of the floor being filled with self-congratulatory, whooping Polydor execs, it’s still easy to see that other people are enjoying themselves.

As he ends on second single, the rocky ‘Hey Kid’, it’s obvious that while Matt isn’t going to change the world, these are solid pop/rock songs.  All that’s needed is for him to stop watching those Robbie tour videos on repeat and get a little personality of his own.  Oh and of course, to stop bleating on about how damn punk he is.

Photo by: Talia Kraines