Approaching your thirties makes it difficult to relate to songs such as Growing Pains and I’m Not Your Toy, with lyrics like “this isn’t another girl meets boy,†but still, La Roux’s self-titled debut album had enough great pop to transcend the generation gap – In For The Kill, for example, a mainstay on commercial radio, was difficult to resist. However, in a live setting, it’s far more difficult to overcome your ever-increasing cynicism. Surrounded by predominantly teenage girls (bar an odd few 50-something suited gents), who seemed more interested in showing off their latest high street combinations than listening to the bands (Sting’s daughter appeared to support June from The Bill’s, borrowing her dad’s dance moves with I Blame Coco) onstage, audience members of a particular age were taken back to the horrors of a musical period forever etched on their brains. Resembling an ‘80s period David Bowie with her excessive quiff, La Roux’s front-lady took us back to a period of large shoulder pads and clunky jewellery, whoop whoops and plenty of sincere crowd waving and hand on heart moments, whilst – representative of the time – her band stood stiffly, systematically pressing on their keyboards and tapping their drum machine. Unfortunately, that’s where the faithful homage ended, Eleanor Jackson lacks a vocal to rival any of the better known singers of the decade’s synthesizer bands we’d rather forget, rendering her non-hits, such as As If By Magic, unbearable – her painful pitch highlighted on an ill-advised solo acoustic spot (the floor shuddering beats were the only saving grace for the likes of Bulletproof). Only a musically interesting Rolling Stones cover, Under My Thumb, offered any semblance of substance over the disproportionate style, with the combination of harsh delivery, brutal lighting, and the toxic combination of hairspray and perfume threatening a seizure from the third number on.
