The day after this show, Radio 1 DJ Emma B, who had been in the audience, described the Music's singer Robert Harvey as "such a rock star". By whose impoverished standards? Even allowing for Harvey being 19 and not long out of Kippax, Leeds, he doesn't possess one-twentieth of the presence that, say, Liam Gallagher did at a similar age. Evidently, there is such a dearth of genuine rock fabulousness that this monosyllabic "goatweed" smoker finds himself acclaimed by default.
While we're at it, why is this quartet of backward-looking guitar-mashers being flagged as the next big thing by people old enough to remember the Stone Roses' "rock" second album, from which the Music borrow heavily? Novelty value? Their Roses-meets-Led Zeppelin fusion certainly can't be pigeonholed into the supposed "new rock revolution" of the Vines, et al. Anyone who squeezed into the jammed Brixton Academy hoping for short, sharp shocks would have been poleaxed by epic cosmic rambling.
Take, for instance, Disco, which belied its name: stewarded along by guitarist Adam Nutter, it disjointedly ground on and on as Nutter amused himself with his distortion pedal. Then there was Too High. Name a song Too High and it is destined to turn into spaced-out porridge, more likely to make listeners nod off than get high. Nutter, for his sins, worked hard here, whanging out chiming lines to couch Harvey's directionless wailing.
The latter may yet blossom; he has a splenetic scream and a nifty line in octopus-like dancing that emerged once he had warmed up. He also had an undeniable connection with the Academy's moshing audience. But at heart he is a heads-down flailer who has diligently studied Gallagher and Richard Ashcroft without identifying what makes them tick. The answer is that attention is meat and drink to them, whereas Harvey literally shunned the limelight, spending half the set in the shadows of stage left.
One thing you couldn't fault, though, was the Music's commitment; that was how they managed to persuade 4,000 people to hurl themselves around, then buy the T-shirt. They may not be cool, but to fans, they have the X-factor in spades. Given that, the question of their success is less a matter of if than when.
