Editors

Support bands have it tough, don't they? Playing to ambivalent (and relatively sober) audiences isn't easy, but The Cloud Room do an admirable job of entertaining those who've bothered to turn up early enough to catch their set. What the American quartet lack in showmanship they more than make up for with bona-fide tunes; and in set closer 'Hey Now Now' they have the kind of indie anthem that's sure to have Jo Whiley foaming at the mouth before the year is out.

We Are Scientists have already been responsible for inducing several pints of dribble from FM radio DJs who should know better, and if their name is bad then their nondescript brand of emo tinged frat-rock is even worse. I'm not sure what's more offensive: the singer's nasal whining or the bass player's laughable moustache. Every so often a band comes along that leaves me shaking my head in a combination of disbelief and disdain. We Are Scientists? You are that band.

Tonight's headliners, on the other hand, have little trouble living up to the considerable hype surrounding them. Back in April, then relatively unknown, Editors couldn't fill the Zodiac's tiny downstairs room. Dismissed as the British Interpol, nobody seemed that interested. Fast forward six months, and a capacity crowd awaits their Oxford return.

Singer Tom Smith bounds on-stage, greets us repeatedly and proceeds to perform like a man possessed. Very much the focal point of Editors' icy post-punk assault, Smith jerks and twitches around the stage with the confidence you'd expect from a man who knows that his band are approaching the top of their game.

The recently repackaged 'Bullets' is dispatched just two songs into the set, and 'Blood' soon follows, but they could release at least half of debut album 'The Back Room' and get away with it. From the throbbing energy of 'Someone Says' to the foot stomping riffage of 'All Sparks', this Birmingham four-piece have ample material with which to continue their rapid assent, and in Smith they have a singer well equipped to deliver it. On this evidence, Editors might just be the real deal after all.

Photo by Gemma White