The Mystery Jets. Not really a band I’ve given much thought to since I was about fourteen. And yet there I was at Proud Camden, standing two rows from the front, expecting to see the same chipper-sweet, awkward-slash-cool group of boys come bounding on stage – but instead I got age. I didn’t know who these men were.
The crowd needed no warming up; a roar of ‘sha la la las’ during the opening number was enough. And it was impossible to tell which songs were most popular as everyone clapped along with fervour. Four songs in, the band had already fallen back on what they called an ‘oldie’ (‘Dreaming of Another World’, from their 2010 album), which gave respite from the weeping indie, folk-Beatle sound their new material intermittently evokes.
The Mystery Jets even managed to turn a mass of strange faces into a family as the audience clung to each other and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ in appreciation of frontman Blaine Harrison turning 27. Amidst the communal songs and cheers, I felt thoroughly left out. Is this what the obligatory gig beer is for? Because no matter how lost you are, at the very least, you only came to drink.
Considering that this month is the ten year anniversary of their first ever gig, they were pleasantly lacking in the onstage pressure that most bands have when on a promotional tour. Perhaps it was the fact that they sat throughout the entire show, or that they were dressed as country singers, but the mild smiles riding around their faces were demonstrative of a group at ease with their status in the industry.
Listening to their fourth studio album, Radlands, afterwards, I start to enjoy, in retrospect, the gig I attended. After the better part of a decade I admit that they are not half bad, maybe even quite good.
Nevertheless – and maybe this is just me – I still hold them at a sceptical distance.
Words & Pics: Angel Lambo
