Black Lips, Vivian Girls, The Soft Pack, London Islington Academy

While The Soft Pack’s hype machine cranks it up to the hilt, the San Diego five piece arrive in town for their first UK gig and much expectation infuses the atmosphere at this London gig. Whilst many will lazily dismiss these upstarts as lame spawns of The Strokes, the super-tight renditions of their increasingly admired back catalogue invokes long lost memories of The Modern Lovers’ louche take on slacker Rock ‘n’ Roll. Ok, frontman Matt Lamkin and co don’t set the night alight with life changing stage presence and banter but with tunes in the canon to fire such as ‘Parasites’ and ‘Extinction’, you get the impression that The Soft Pack will be gracing many of our lips in a year’s time. The term ‘radio friendly’ applies so much that in airwave circles they’d be classed as almost pervy. Be prepared to be bombarded at future Indie discos.

After an exhilarating commencement to proceedings, Vivian Girls grace us with their presence. Like The Soft Pack, hype preceeds them yet they seem to fall flat compared to their American counterparts. The three girls from Brooklyn exhort twee to the extent where it makes the gathering masses almost sleepy. Extended onstage mutterings of hanging out at the Mall and eating apples anyone? Hmmm. Shame really as their American shoegazey songs along with some rather beatific harmonies hit the high spots in places.

So like a rather hard whack in the face, Black Lips headline and dish up a reliable psych-garage main course. Promoting their fifth album ‘200 Million Thousand’ and putting bizarre dalliances with relatives of Osama Bin Laden aside, they remind us all how much of an excitingly charged live outfit they are. Rather swampy on record, in a room with ferocious sound volumes, Black Lips induce natural adrenaline production so much so that the crowd, rather sombre all evening is morphed into a sweaty mess. With pleasing early tunes such as ‘O Katrina!’ and ‘Starting Over’ hurled off early on, it’s the intriguing new offerings from ‘200 Thousand Miles’ that beg for attention. Displaying a maybe more inventive take on their blues/garage tracks the smiles from both band and crowd at the night’s conclusion highlight that whilst fame and fortune may not beset them, Black Lips are continuing to produce the goods and their fanbase on this side of the pond remains as loyal as ever.