Mystery Jets at the Custard Factory 06/05/2010

This was an odd one. Apparently Chevrolet are launching a new car, called a Spark, and to celebrate this they enlisted Mystery Jets to perform a 5 date "unscheduled" tour around the country. The cities that the tour stopped at was decided by an online poll on the Chevrolet website, with the pollsters receiving tickets to go along to their chosen city if it won. Now, I only know this with hindsight after some brief researching on the internet. On the night however there was little explanation as to what was going on at all. Kicking off at around 7.30 on a Friday night is not normal practice, and myself and a couple of pals tried to get in (our names convieniently didn't show up on the guestlist) as Mystery Jets were already starting their set. Luckily we were allowed in regardless (breaking the illusion of exclusivity) we dashed into a relitively empty Space 2. This seems to be an ongoing problem with these sponsored shows: no-one knows about them. The same happened at the xBox Reverb show I went to last year. So here's the scene: Mystery Jets are playing on a stage over to the right, there are about 80-100 people standing around in the middle, and to the left are a couple of ugly cars that have been given a "cool" paint job and had a DJ booth installed on the top. I'm confused. However, Chevrolet were obviously aware this would happen and had provided a free bar (maximum of two drinks) for the punters. I got myself a cold one and tried to shut out the vehicular distractions and watch Mystery Jets do their thing.

It was clear from the outset that tonight the band's focus would be on showcasing their new material from forthcoming third album, Serotonin. Opening with latest single 'Flash A Hungry Smile' shows that the Jets are happy to continue on their excursion down the indie pop road, and this song will certainly be one that follows you around this summer. I hadn't been that much of a fan of Twenty One but you can't deny the infectious nature of tracks like 'Young Love' and 'Two Doors Down', the latter of which got the crowd going the most, albeit a near-static bop. It saddens me that they don't play material from the first LP these days, seeing how that was a fave of 2006 (corr, that long ago?), but the new material did enough to leave me suitably impressed, especially 'Waiting for a Miracle', that was a rather tasty cut. So, on walking back out onto Digbeth High Street at a little after 8.30pm with the sun still somewhere in the sky did I want to go out and buy a Chevrolet? No. But I will be keeping an eye out for Mystery Jets over the summer as they are a band made for the festivals, a sunny pop band who have got the knack of writing catchy hooks, but not selling cars.

photo via facebook.com/sparktour