Athlete

Athlete on track at the Apollo

South East London’s Athlete are childhood friends Joel Pott (lead vocals/guitar), Carey Willetts (bass), Tim Wanstall (keys) and Stephen Roberts (drums), whose debut album, “Vehicles & Animals”, boasts a 2003 Mercury Music Prize nomination. This introduced their own brand of quirky, catchy indie pop, and they’ve since followed it up with a second album “Tourist”, which demonstrates a mature opinion of where urban Britpop is today. The Hammersmith Apollo was the latest in their round of shows in the UK, which had also taken in the Grolsch Summer Set, appropriately held at London’s Somerset House in August.

‘Switch on the lights’ Joel slowly pronounced as he strolled deliberately into the apt first line of “Yesterday Threw Everything At Me”, after which he burst into the uplifting “Half Light”. Switching to their debut, we were treated to “Westside”, but then back to “Tourist”, and the title track.

“New Project” contains a slice of very un-Athlete like heavy rock music, which appears to allow the lads a rare chance to let out some aggression. However it stops as abruptly as it started, with the more relaxed piano taking over for the conclusion. The piano remained as it tiptoed gently into “Street Map”, and for this a street map of London was projected onto a white screen that had dropped down behind the stage. Towards the end of the song, the map centred in on Hammersmith and our venue for tonight, which brought cheers from the packed Apollo.

Feeling we were sufficiently well oiled, Joel introduced a new track, “Stand In The Sun”, which, to be honest, needs a few more plays for me, but we then returned to familiarity with the jaunty “El Salvador”, and the pensive “Shake Those Windows”.

“I Love” turned on the sentiment, and the good mood continued with “Beautiful”, one of their best from “Vehicles & Animals”. Next up was another highlight of V&A, “You Got The Style”, and the whole stage glowed red as Joel exclaimed ‘Oh! It’s getting hot in here’. However, instead of suggesting that we take off all our clothes, the song continued by reasoning ‘Must be somethin’ in the atmosphere’ – this was thoughtful, considered rock. We were all sentimental again with “Trading Air”, which set the scene for certainly the highlight for me, the anthemic “Wires”. I’ve been to quite a few gigs at the Apollo, but have never before peered through the gloom and witnessed the whole crowd, both seated and standing areas alike, without exception, on their feet, hands in the air, singing in unison as one as they were to this extremely powerful tune.

That was it for me - I was ready to go. I seriously believed there wouldn’t be a traditional encore – the performance of that song rounded off the whole show perfectly. However, with the crowd whipped up into such a fever, the lads were quickly back out, bringing us to a close with the semi majestic “Changes”, the first track from “Tourist”, and the easy rhythm of “If I Found Out”, also from “Tourist” but which could’ve easily been in the shortlist for “Vehicles & Animals”. However, while these are excellent songs in their own right, they didn’t have the depth and authority possessed by “Wires”, and we left feeling a little flat.

Despite my disappointment with the song order, I found Athlete’s live performance talented and thought provoking, and also found myself anticipating their third long player with interest.

Reviewed by Dan