Les Savy Fav

See more photos of this show HERE

Towards the end of their set, Gareth of Los Campesinos! dedicates a song to DrownedinSound, citing us as a place that's covered the likes of themselves, Future Of The Left and Les Savy Fav longer than most. It's a good thing we have, because there's really not a lot I could tell you about the band based on tonight's show, as the PA at the Astoria seems to do that magic trick where it sounds like complete arse until the headline band comes on.

Through no fault of their own, the Cardiff-formed septet sound like a three piece, such is the muddiness of the sound, swallowing entire members' contributions. Thankfully, 'You, Me, Dancing''s epic crescendo manages to battle through the issues and sets spines tingling. As consistently brilliant as all of their songs are, it'll be a massive achievement for them to conjure up a musical moment as elative as when that riff breaks in. Somehow, though, I really wouldn't put it past them.

Future Of The Left, too, are utterly hamstrung by the sound issues, so there really is little of worth that I can say about their performance. I can tell you that I finally got around to listening to their album just recently, and while they're nowhere near as funny as Mclusky or as musically inventive as Jarcrew, they really know how to fucking rock. The obscenely aggressive stomp of 'adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood' truly slays, and just about overcomes the sound problems. The highlight, though, is Falco's dismantling of the drum kit during the final song: somehow it seems like the only sane reaction to being on such a massive, hair gel-sponsored stage with your guitars not entirely audible.

Tim Harrington is unassailably the greatest frontman in the history of rock music. (He’s certainly the greatest ever frontman _off stage, as LSF audience members will undoubtedly back up once they’ve wiped his sweat off their own brows – Ed.)_ Yeah, Iggy in his time could out-antic him, and countless people (Mike Patton springs to mind) have infinitely better voices, but who else can be so consistently entertaining and succeed in making people feel this good? It's almost spiritual. The fact that he's so far from conventionally attractive and yet so unbelievably magnetic only makes it better.

The true proof of Harrington’s greatness is that he's the only actually visually interesting thing about Les Savy Fav, and yet their gigs are unbelievably fun. Seriously, I can't easily think of a more generic band that gets so much kudos from ‘people who actually care about music’, but maybe that's the point - this is stadium rock for hipsters, U2 if they listened to a few Gang Of Four and Fugazi records (just try and tell me that those delay soaked lead lines don't sound like The Edge). It's almost depressing - the music just pushing the right buttons at the right times being utterly redeemed by Harrington costume changes, crowd missions and kinetic grandeur. A note-for-note straight cover of 'Debaser', which somehow feels better than seeing Pixies do it themselves, reinforces my feelings.

'The Sweat Descends' and 'We'll Make A Lover Of You' utterly, utterly rule, and 'Patty Lee' (anyone else think this sounds just like The Cribs? Just me then? Soz…) shows that they're still writing good 'uns, but instrumentally they're barely different to Editors or some other much-derided post punk-influenced beat combo. But I guess that's how it works - wouldn't want to risk taking the spotlight off Tim. Sav(v)y, indeed.