So that's it for this year's NME tour
April 2006, The Automatic confirm to anyone who doubted their inevitable road to stardom that they were heading for the big time by causing a road block in London's NW1 at the Camden Crawl. February 2007 they return to the Capital to headline the NME Indie Rock Tour.
It's fair to say that excitement for this year's NME Tour hasn't reached the same climax as the 2006 Maximo Monkey version. Maybe the split into two with the Klaxons headlining the Indie Rave version deflected some of the attention but tickets last year sold out in minutes whereas in 2007 it took weeks for tickets to be snapped up for all gigs. Not that this mattered to those inside Brixton Academy for the final night, or headliners The Automatic who gave as good a performance as I've seen. This was my forth time watching the Welsh rockers in eight months, and certainly one of the higher profile sets I've seen them play and they didn't disappoint.
Just after 10 PM they took to the stage opening with album track 'By My Side' followed up with crowd favourite 'Raoul'. Other notable songs included an unnamed new track, a cover of Talking Heads' 'Life During Wartime' and the moment many had been waiting for, 'Monster' which appeared around halfway through. The band were also joined on stage by their tour manager who sang lead vocals on one song.
Although they played a Talking Heads track the regular cover of the Kanye West hit 'Gold Digger' was left out on this occasion.
The night was rounded off with 'Recover' where the rest of the bands on the tour invaded the stage to kick a ball about.
It was difficult to separate the Automatic and The View in terms of crowd reaction however The Scots just edged it for me as their music is naturally fresher with their new album only recently released whereas the Automatic have been touring 'Not Excepted Anywhere' for almost a year.
So another NME Tour comes to a close. Will Mumm-Ra go on to become the mega stars that previous openers have done? Will the Horrors remain a cult act or earn wider appeal? How successful will the View get and when will The Automatic get round to recording some new stuff as good though they are it would be nice to get something different from them.