If tonight proves anything, it’s that energy isn’t enough. Check out The Pin-Ups. Excitable fanzine writers from north London, they make a loud, forgettable din that wears its grazed knuckles with pride.
The singer has an infuriatingly patronising Damon-esque way with fake laddisms, while single ’12 Year Old Tart’ (“Thir’een-year-old muvvva!”) reveals a grasp of social complexities right up there with Norman Tebbit. The Pin-Ups have all the wit and sartorial elegance of Northern Uproar, and should be treated with according disrespect.
Vyvyan, meanwhile, bash out cheery punka takes on the girl-group idiom which, like them, is too cute to be taken as anything other than a little hobby between A-levels and RADA. The band rattle through ‘Round The Bend’ and ‘Teenage Wannabees’ like the Stepford Hole, enunciating like crazy and coming on like Bonnie Langford hopefuls with guitars.
Infuriatingly anodyne, Vyvyan. Team them with two PE teachers from Stoke and they’d be Steps. This is no compliment, but Vyvyan might think it is. If this is the sound of the suburbs, I’m off to burn Network Southeast’s rolling stock.