Leeds Festival 2009
All is quiet on The NME/Radio 1 Stage for Metronomy, a little too quiet perhaps. Indeed, an inauspicious start saw ‘Nights Out’ droning and posturing slowly into life before a smash of drums and ‘Heart Rate Rapid’ properly introduced their set and invited throngs to partake in the revelry. The band almost looked too serious in matching black and white uniforms and kit, all apart from a garish red bass guitar. Formalities aside, could they really be the pretenders in waiting for Klaxons’ bizarro-electro crown? The credentials are certainly there from the likes of thrilling instrumental ‘On The Motorway’ with its mélange of beats and high pitched synths which drifted between coherency and damn near bedlam. Or maybe ‘Holiday’ featuring chipmunk vocals which left no-one quite sure as to whether they were to be taken seriously.
Despite their minimalist slot there was time for a brief introduction of the revamped line-up and even more sentimentality present during a timely ‘A Thing For Me’ over the breathtaking background din of beats and bleeps. Despite the Usain Bolt-esque poses towards bassist, momentum is then lost to a muddied, melodramatic ‘Heartbreaker‘. Like an expertly executed DJ mix, ‘The End of You Too’ became a dizzy, dirty concoction of looped samples, impudent guitar and incessant drum refrains. As if that lead-in was impressive then the one that belonged to ‘Radio Ladio’ could well be an 80’s soundtrack in disguise with its mix of camp and garish synths. Interest waned during a laboured ‘On Dancefloors‘, only for their time to be curtailed. An evident shame when lead singer Joseph Mount declared that their final song was “guna be a banger”. Those present will just never know.