Titus Andronicus, Scala, London

Last time I saw Titus Andronicus was at CAMP; a tiny, low-ceilinged, grotty little basement bar (all those things are compliments), and they were wild; a feral pack of wolves howling on the stage. Tonight? Tonight is weird, tonight doesn’t quite work.

It’s not all the band’s fault, the Scala is a horrible venue; sanitised, clean-shaven and wholesome. There’s not even a bar in the same room as the band. You want a beer during the set? You’ve got to go through doors, down stairs and through more doors. How can that work? Momentum is lost, songs missed, moments gone. Yeah you could watch without a drink but c’mon, we’re watching a punked up take on blue-collar American bar-room rock here, it demands a beer, it’s crying out for a cold can of lager raised high in the air.

It’s not all the Scala’s fault either. It feels like we’re watching a band that aren’t quite ready for the size of the venue, who haven’t learned to connect unless they can see the whites of your eyes. This isn’t a show to convert the uninitiated, people who have come because they’ve heard good things won’t go away mesmerised. They’ll say ‘yeah, it was ok, I definitely liked them, but it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be’.

For those in the know though? For those that have seen them before and know how this works? Man, this is a total blast. Down the front the pit is vital, vibrant and super-enthused. I get in there, find the rhythm of the crowd (drop that much travelled for beer - damn), and it makes sense. The connection is there. It’s anthemic like the Hold Steady are anthemic, it’s wordy and smart like the Hold Steady are wordy and smart and the choruses are simply, brilliantly, mammoth. What they lack in the worldly-wise rhetoric of the aforementioned band, what they can’t match in terms of been-there, seen-it-all experience they make up for with self-righteous tightly wound fury and despair. A seeming utter bafflement as to where they fit in, where their place is in the world when they’re surrounded by the rank averageness and inertia of, well, pretty much everyone and everything. And down the front we get it, we see the passion and flame in singer Patrick Stickles’ eyes, especially during the gloriously rabble-rousing epic ‘The Battle Of Hampton Roads’. But behind us I’m not so sure they’re feeling it, not convinced the band have quite got that capacity to reach out and shake strangers out of their passivity yet. But it’ll happen, they’ll be back and get it right. There’s too much rabid life in them for it not to become infectious, too much fire in their bellies to just burn out. And when it happens I’ll be there, down the front, raising a beer.