MGMT, The Forum, London

There’s a strange sense of uncertainty surrounding the build up to MGMT’s show tonight. With their third full length released a mere month ago and still fresh in the memory, you’d almost expect it to be a tribute to said album; a statement show, so to speak; its sole purpose to serve as pure promotion, re-affirming the audience’s belief in the band and how well those songs stand up in the live arena. However, the decidedly divisive nature of said album split opinion among fans and critics alike, and after having a quick glance around tonight’s crowd, it’s fair to say most of these punters probably experienced their collective heydays during MGMT’s 2008 – 2009 plateau. Old-schoolers. Such a belief is only re-affirmed by repeatedly bumping into members of Klaxons at every corner. Regardless, the question remains - will MGMT convey stubborn confidence in their most recent effort by powering through it in its near entirety, or fall back on the old mainstays to keep those original fans content?

With a backdrop of glitchy psych visuals and garbled radio chatter, the band enter stage right with their stunning rendition of Faine Jade’s ‘Introspection’, one of the high points from ‘MGMT’. Their intentions seem clear, then. But there’s an obvious problem from the off - it doesn’t sound at all stunning tonight. It sounds flat, thin and utterly lifeless. How much of that is down to the muddy sonic swamp that is The Forum or the band themselves is still unclear for now, but their stiff, timid performance certainly doesn’t help their cause.

A tepid, underwhelming response from the crowd is a deserving reflection of what’s just been witnessed, and such a reaction seems to send the band into panic mode. Play the hits. They immediately and abruptly launch into ‘Time To Pretend’, which compared to the borderline abysmal performance of ‘Introspection’, sounds powerful, clear and frankly brilliant. It completely re-energises the crowd to the point of near-hysteria. It’s a shocking transformation from the damn near fiasco that went before it, but having said that, if you still can’t play a song well after six years of touring, then something is seriously wrong.

This ‘new-song-followed-by-old-hit’ pattern repeats itself several times during the course of the show, with ‘Plenty Of Girls In The Sea’ and ‘Mystery Disease’ sounding entirely soul-less and dull, only to be followed by confident, entertaining performances of old classics ‘Kids’ and ‘Electric Feel’. To put it simply, the crowd aren’t at all interested in hearing anything from ‘MGMT’ tonight, and quite honestly, the band don’t look as though they want to play anything from it either.

Hence, ‘Oracular Spectacular’ and ‘Congratulations’ are relied upon in surprisingly heavy fashion. As the band wrap up their encore with another timid, uncertain rendition of ‘Alien Days’, a total of four songs from ‘MGMT’ have been played. It doesn’t exactly scream of confidence. Perhaps they still need to work out the kinks in the newer material, or perhaps they just don’t translate well to the live stage. Either way, it’s clear that there’s still a lot of work to be done before they can take a confident step in the right direction. For the time being, MGMT are stuck in precarious, unsettled territory, unsure of which way to turn.