FOUR fresh faced Catholic boys who are barely out of school created a testosterone fuelled petrol bomb of madness in Belfast on Sunday night. Now you may be forgiven for mistaking this as some deeply hilarious prank by some tanked up mob of Holyland boys involving water balloons, Fairy Liquid and a Chinese delivery man but no, this is not the work of the Holyland's tour de force of tomfoolery, it is the work of indie's young players of the season, The View.
This is their victory lap around Britain, celebrating their No. 1 album and their three Top 20 singles. Of course, no victory lap would be complete without a bouquet of flowers thrown onto the stage, or in the Mandela Hall's case, an array of trainers aimed at singer Kyle Falconers head. Unaware of this the band launch into Coming Down, the opening track of the album and of their set. This song throws bangers at the crowd's feet and makes them bounce hard and fast. It creates a perfect balance of euphoria and fear for your own safety resulting in uncontrollable bouncing and a Cheshire grin a mile wide.
After Coming Down (something I definitely wasn't) they raced through Don't Tell Me and probably one of the highlights of the night, Wasted Little DJs. After this breath-taking opening they stumbled into a plateau of clumsy and unimpressive versions of latest double A side, The Don and Skag Trendy (imitation Pete Dohertry squawk anyone?), two of their songs that I find very average and live they were performed more like the ramshackle noise of an ADHD Nirvana cover band than that of The Libertines.
However they did redeem themselves with the annoyingly catchy radio friendly Same Jeans which had everyone from the paint faced emo at the front to the pony tailed bouncer at the back singing along. It was during this song that it occurred to me that there was not one woman (may be an exaggeration) in the Mandela Hall. Not a whiff of fake tan or hair spray, well with the exception of the metrosexuals in attendance.
This began to manifest in my mind and I began to believe that I had actually been swallowed whole by a great big grunting, sweaty, testosterone fuelled frenzy. It was shocking that these flop top pin-ups hadn't more females in attendance. The only reason I could offer to explain the female absenteeism was the impending GCSEs. The fairer sex aside, The View hammered through Street Lights and some unknown tracks with the same flaming vivacity they had at the beginning of their set leaving their brief mid set shambles nothing but a fleeting memory. These pop gems laid out the red carpet for the A-list end to the night, the trumpets sounded and Kyle Falconer spoke to the audience, "arite we dinnae play neh encoors, this is superstar tradesman." It took me a few seconds to decipher his barely audible dialect but as soon as I heard the opening riff it all became clear, "ahhh, he means Superstar Tradesmen." This anthemic distaste of good honest work had every bone idle philosopher in the Mandela Hall (which was basically the capacity) throw their fist in the air and scream in agreement. This concluded their victory lap pit stop in Belfast in impressive fashion. The View's fire burns bright.
