Live Review

Scouting For Girls – The Junction, Cambridge

• 11th Dec 2007

“Down, down you bring me down.” Music for the masses has gone a long way below since the brilliance of the Roses. Now Scouting For Girls and the like can sell out provincial towns’ largest venues and have the country’s teens screaming; a couple of catchy numbers from the telly and that radio station seem to bring success to all the wrong people. The problem is that you’re easily turned when you’re young and if Radio 1 plays this and tells you it’s alternative and amazing when the music isn’t disagreeable at all then this is what happens. There’s nothing wrong with this band and there’s everything wrong with them.

They can all play, they can write brilliant choruses and the front Scout has all the confidence to own the stage. But he owns it with the corniest patter “we love you soooooo much, this is the greatest show we’ve ever played….we just can’t believe it!” Well of course they can, they are playing all the tricks here to draw the kids further into their clutches. You only have to watch the crowd to see that they aren’t really listening to the music, most are filming or taking photos on their phones, many don’t ever see the stage but from their screens. If the gig were that good surely they would be lost in it and not thinking of putting their gem (owned by the rest of the crowd from a different angle) on Youtube and in front of their jealous mates noses, “we got in last night to Scouting For Girls, it was sold out and sooooo amazing, they played ‘Elvis Aint Dead’, watch this!”

What can sometimes happen at these gigs is a special support band can get a slot on these bills and turn some of these young heads towards better things. Ida Maria was lost on many at Good Shoes but everyone was talking afterwards about the mad, passionate woman they’d just seen. Like nothing you’ve ever seen and wholly good, as were the main Shoes. That wasn’t the case tonight. Two very safe and similarly average acts came and went using all the commercial pretence that sells so many records now. Both Jack McManus and Sonic Hearts will do well. Jack played Cambridge just a week before in front of less than ten punters; tonight the sell out Junction was full for his early start. The great thing is young crowds always arrive early to see and hear everything that happens; what a shame it was so little. Jack is a singer songwriter in the vein of so many others. He has a good voice and a few songs of quality but after a few they blend together and you drift off. Sonic Hearts are far more annoying with bubble machines, balloons and all the gimmicks you couldn’t want; it all got the crowd excited but not for the music which is dead, dead middling. They recall I’m From Barcelona and are just as sickly. We’re crazy we are. Mad.

You can dance to this; it’s fun but Scouting For Girls just aren’t very good. With a friend who loved the songs released and came excited to see a buzz band, they found the whole night disappointing and pretty dull. Even the favourites didn’t hit the heights of note or excitement expected despite the best efforts of the shrieking fans, and they love this. That’s hard to argue against; only that maybe they’ve never seen anything better to compare, limited by conservative play lists. Real music fans will break away from this and loyalty won’t happen, others will continue watching and buying until the next big thing arrive for another one album wonder, a few sold out gigs a year to brag about. Scouting For Girls really are the most popular new band in England and you just can’t believe it.