Athlete - Hammersmith Apollo Tuesday 1st November 2005 reviewed by Cars

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I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting much tonight from Athlete. I was one of the few people that has liked them from the start. I bought You Got The Style way, way before the debut album release & certainly before anyone had heard of them. I was elated when the first album was came out, played it to death & thought I'd found a band who were really different to anything else that was out there. So, I admit I was one of the disappointed ones when I heard Tourist. I do actually like the album, very much so, but to me it felt like they changed their style. They conformed, they "sold out", they did what other bands were doing. Although I still played both the albums my interest in them did wain because of this. That was until my friend Zoe suggested we go & see them. So there I was, at Hammersmith watching Magnet their first support act. Magnet is just a bloke called Ewan by the way. He's one of these people that call themselves by a band name even though there's only one of them. I hate that but I quite like Magnet so he's forgiven for this ridiculous trend! He was first around in 2003 & never really made a big dent in the market. Had I not worked in a record store I doubt I would have known him. He put on a pretty good performance tonight, if a little "samey". Highlight was his duet with Gemma Hayes on Lay Lady Lay (best track off his debut album). Felt a little sorry for her when she walked onstage to join him as I don't think people recognised her. She was the second support act & was very good. She's not exactly very interesting to watch but has an incredible voice. New album was released on Monday & she stuck mainly to tracks from that tonight. Stand out songs for me though were 2 from her debut - Hanging Around & Let A Good Thing Go. I hope she does well. Breaking the flow slightly I must include this in the review. One of the things I like about the Apollo is they have signs up telling you the times bands appear onstage. So tonight it had: Doors 7.00, Magnet 7.25, Gemma Hayes 8.15, Athlete 9.20. It wasn't until Ms Hayes went offstage that my friend said "3 support acts is a lot isn't it, glad we missed the first one". Yes, she thought Doors were a support act. Had Jim Morrison come back from the dead I'm not sure Magnet would have been big enough to go on after him. She claimed she thought it was a different Doors. Hmm. So, onto Athlete. They kicked off as I feared with a slow song. I can't tell you how much I hate it when bands do that. Maybe I'm too rock orientated but there's nothing like a big bang of a stage entrance. This was a few blokes walking onstage strumming away to Yesterday Threw Everything At Me. They did however pick up with 2nd track Half Light which probably would have been the most suitable show opener from current album. By the third song, Westside from debut album, I was loving it. The lighting was fantastic throughout & though they obviously have a lot of mellow songs they really tried hard to make them as dynamic as possible His voice was consistant with the studio & the band played to perfection. There really wasn't much to fault them on. They played 6 songs from Vehicles & Animals, 10 from Tourist & 1 b-side. I call that pretty good value for money! I was pleasantly surprised that, aside from Wires, the biggest crowd reactions were to their earlier stuff. Certainly the people around me knew all the words to them. Hopefully the band picked up on this & will maybe go back to their roots more in the 3rd album. So all in all a good nights entertainment from a band that have the talent to stand out from the rest. Highlights were Westside, Street Map, Beautiful, You Got The Style, Wires 8 out of 10 (points off for poor choices for show opener & encore) Setlist: Yesterday Threw Everything At Me Half Light Westside Tourist New Project Street Map Stand In The Sun El Salvador Shake Those Windows I Love Beautiful You Got The Style Trading Air Wires -------- Chance If I Found Out 24 Hours

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