Jet @ Brixton Academy

"What are you doin' Wednesday night?" said Scott. "Wanna come see Jet?" After filling up at Subway in Green Park the thought of watching the band who wrote Are You Gonna Be My Girl was arresting. Sadly the gig left me unsatisfied with my evening.

My musical taste favours strong melodies in both a well crafted, considered song or an improvised approach which builds excitement for both artist and audience. This decade (I'll refer to it as the Noughties) has so far been built on simple, chord based, trendy rock. The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight, etc. etc. etc. bland, bland, BLAND! These bands - according to the Noughties - propose to rock your world when they get on stage. So why is their play count so woefully low in my iTunes library?

I had expected more from Jet. Raucous rockers from down under I'd thought. Hmm... perhaps they were once wild, I couldn't say. From the back of Brixton Academy I heard no edgy songwriting, saw all of three crowd surfers and tapped my foot to the same tempo for far too many tracks in succession. Have Atlantic Records polished the grainy rock edges off this act? The excessive lighting rig leads me to believe so...

Are You Gonna Be My Girl was obviously highly enjoyable to shout along to but was slightly murdered by being drawn out with massive pauses, showing clearly that the band know this is their most popular number by a giant, moon's gravity step and feel the need to milk it live.

There's no faulting Nic Cester's super powerful voice, he has an incredible range & shows every gram of manliness with screams of 'YEAH' and 'COME ON!' booting the on-stage energy up to the roof. But throughout the band there is no evidence of virtuoso playing or innovative melodies. Old hat showmanship routines like the windmilling arm whilst atop an ego-stack of amps were accompanied by no more than one chord. Ahem... weren't The Darkness ridiculed for harking back to the 70's? Yet - even as a joke - I never saw Justin Hawkins up on his Marshalls pretending one chord was worth the attention of thousands. That man can really play!

So we reach the answer to the question. A friend told me recently of how rock gods of the past like Hendrix and Page impress him more than chugger-chugger trendy chord bands. These were musicians who had enviable control over their instruments & created a much richer live gig experience. They didn't need to play their heart out all night to a set routine, and you can sense this in their melodies. The saying goes: If you have a Ferrari, you don't drive it though town at 100MPH, you cruise confidently past everyone so that they can all see what you have.

For a more positive outlook on the band, visit Jet's website and MySpace page!