Tokyo Police Club, Ruby Lounge Manchester

Just to the left of the stage, there is a man who appears to be having the best day of his entire life, taking turns between thrashing wildly along to songs and looking at his bizarrely large phone with its Ian Brown background. Stood alongside him are a young couple who seem to have taken this gig as the ideal place to become overly physical, with a bewildering array of public displays of affection. As the evening wears on, those behind them become more animated, warming up to the point that they cannot stop their desperate arms from flailing and punching along to every song. One man honestly, whole heartedly, does the sign of the horns with his hands.

It’s not that Tokyo Police Club aren’t good – because they’re great – but being at one of their shows can feel like being stuck in somewhat of a time warp, back in a time when the indie mosh pit (or drunken teens desperately jumping into each other) was in fashion, a world where knowing the words to every song isn’t frightening but mandatory. For their part, the band don’t really help dissuade the sensation of being somewhere in the recesses of 2006, peppering their set with crowd friendly handclaps and even using the classic stadium rock technique of getting the crowd to sing along.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing is that it still all actually works. The death of the guitar and the decline of indie rock has been much mulled over, but there’s still a hunger for fast paced, riff driven pop somewhere. Support act Dutch Uncles have been showing the inhabitants of Manchester just how the genre might be able to forge back some respectability for a long while now. It appears that they too are maturing, filling out their sound, resulting in the kind of grandiose overblown brilliance that they have always threatened to deliver.

The distractions in the crowd aside, there’s no denying that Tokyo Police Club are still a wonderful proposition live. Now three major releases into their career, singer Dave Monks is still showing the poetic lyricism that instantly set them apart, but now manages to team it with a sort of showmanship. The tracks from their first E.P. ‘A Lesson in Crime’ are finally starting to show age, a shallow sort of naivety exposed when placed alongside their latest material. But still, there’s not too much difference in the quality of material, enough for the various suggestions shouted from the crowd in the gaps between songs to be genuinely varied. Still, they make sure that all the hits are put out and though one punter’s constant pleas for ‘Sixties Remake’ go unrewarded, the crowd largely leave the venue happy, from the melodic haze of 2006 into the harsh rains of 2010.