The Pigeon Detectives
Live at Leeds Metropolitan University on Sunday, 25th February 2007
The home date of any tour is always going to be that little bit special, and with high expectations the 1000+ crowd sing-along joyously to Justin Timberlake and Amy Winehouse, before 'Drove All Night' welcomes the Rothwell boys to the stage.
The set kicks off in a rip-roaring, gloriously catchy, typically ramshackle, indie-pop fashion with The Pigeon Detectives opening with both of their more recent singles, 'You Know I Love You' and 'I Found Out', followed sharply by 'Don't Know How To Say Goodbye' and 'You Better Not Look My Way'. Only a few songs in, and already the swell of the crowd looks particularly brutal: crowd-surfers go over two or three a time, while medics attend to one dazed by beer, a stray boot, or both.
For forty minutes, the atmosphere is electric and the on-stage energy of the band is reflected, nay magnified, in the fanatic enthusiasm of the crowd, which in turn spurs frontman Matt Bowman on more ... and so the cycle goes, almost self-fulfilling.
Matt climbs the speaker stack; he jumps. He takes the easier option of the drum riser; he jumps. He asks the girls in the audience for their bras; bras are thrown. He has the audience eating out of his palm; he loves it; they love him.
The band's new single 'Romantic Type' sees Matt venture out, to be tossed, carried and bounced around like a small buoy in a gale on the analogous sea of arms that moments earlier was the choreography to the mob chanting of "Yorkshire! Yorkshire! Yorkshire!"
'I'm Not Sorry' is the now customary set-closer, albeit there's no opportunity for a stage invasion tonight, before Matt declares that everyone is invited to Oporto for the aftershow party and Yorkshire, and LS26 in particular, leaves drunk, hyper and happy...
