Wild Nothing, Scala, London

After a nice, if slightly ignored, warm-up from Manchester’s Golden Glow, with their soft vocals and strong guitars, things start happening in the Scala. The smoke machine seems to have a mind of its own tonight, attacking the far left of the crowd and enveloping them in its thick grey fog. It’s not a great vantage point, but what with tonight being sold-out and all, you have to stand where there’s even a slither of space.

As the lights turn a deep purple and the venue is forced into a fitting atmosphere, Wild Nothing take to the stage and launch into ‘Shadow’. Tonight’s set is fairly balanced between last year’s album ‘Nocturne’, and debut ‘Gemini’, with weighting giving to the former, and tracks from the two mix well together live.

Disappointingly though, Wild Nothing’s dreamy synth-laden 80s pop at times seems to fail to rouse the audience. As Jack Tatum points out in a rare moment of interaction – one of the only other examples being a “Yo!” when somebody from the sea of people shouts his name – this is the band’s biggest club show they’ve ever played. You’d expect something a bit more from it, if that’s really the case.

Not that the night is a complete dud. You could easily forget how crap the weather outside is as Tatum’s warm vocals take us from ‘Live In Dreams’ to the tropical ‘Paradise’. And then the stage goes black for just a few seconds, obscuring the band before they return with the intro to ‘This Chain Won’t Break’.

They’re not the most talkative bunch, but it would probably ruin the atmosphere if they cracked jokes and chatted with the audience any more. A cover of The Go-Betweens’ ‘Head Full Of Steam’ entertains during the encore, but all too soon the gig is over and we have to go back outside.