NME Awards Tour - Brixton Academy, London

So where, last year, every foot-stomping hairdresser's favourite The Fratellis met the doom-drone of The Horrors in a ‘rock’n’roll riot’, we’ve now got four bands bandaged up in an ‘awards tour'. Whether any of them win an NME Award of course remains to be seen (our bet is a token one of them probably will), all that matters to those filing into Brixton Academy tonight is whether they prove a winning package.

First up are The Ting Tings. It’s perhaps ironic that the only girl on the NME tour was last week struck down with man flu, but singer Katie White is back tonight at the Lemsip slurping time of 7pm. The front rows pogo on cue as she coos and yelps through backing-tracked pop gems like ‘Great DJ’ and ‘Fruit Machine’, while partner in shine Jules De Martino belts his drums like a proud uncle. Set closer ‘That’s Not My Name’ should soon be filed alongside Sinita as one of the great Number One hit wonders, and the pair have already hinted at hanging up their boots and starting a new band once that happens. Witness their one-trick performance more than three times and you realise this may not be such a bad idea.

The same could be said for Does It Offend You, Yeah if it wasn't for the fact they've got bags more bullets up their guitar-shredding sleeves than the two-dimensional Ting Tings. While admittedly it’s the effects and pedals that win the Reading band deserving comparisons with Daft Punk, it’s their instrument thrashing disregard for making things sound nice that sharpens their live menace. Rushing the stage like hoodie-clad looters in an apocalyptic LA riot, the split beats of ‘Battle Royale’ are more FreqNasty than French disco, and the call-to-arms shout outs from singer Morgan Yeah more reminiscent of an early ‘90s rave than Parisian electro elegance, but by the time ‘We Are Rock Stars’ smashes the place up it feels like we’re back in Hyde Park last summer.

As Does It Offend You, Yeah begin destroying their well expensive gear in well-rehearsed ritual, the kids are getting their glow sticks confiscated by fun-slapping security anoraks. It’s party over in more ways than one as darkness descends to shroud in an hour of 'cool' seriousness for Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong. Following in a rich tradition of NME-sponsored, dull as Danube indie during the last few years (see also Larrikin Love, Mystery Jets etc), this lot stretch the poet's nosebleed of their contemporaries to entirely new levels. Meaningless lyrics and song-titles, go-nowhere verses and sporadic choruses that require a Hubble space station to locate, listening to their pretentious bilge is like a slow vice to the Ging Gang Goolies. ‘Lucio Starts Fires’ is the only thing half resembling a decent song. If only he could set fire to the five on stage.

If Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong are in danger of becoming the equivalent of last year’s NME-tipped boo boo The Twang, it must also be remembered that the magazine does tip the odd winner too. Enter The Cribs who since splitting opinion on their first two albums are now proving just how essential they are on today’s UK music scene via their third. While beer swilling audiences these days clamour for the likes of Pigeon Detectives and The View when it comes to raucous rock’n’roll shows, there’s really no one doing it better than Wakefield’s Jarman brothers. The fact that live favourites, such as ‘Martell’, can be left out to accommodate the bulk of their latest album ‘Men’s Need’s Women’s Needs Whatever’ proves the strength of their finest record yet, and live it’s just incendiary.

‘Moving Pictures’, ‘Our Bovine Republic’ and ‘Men’s Needs’ are passion-spat modern classics, all shrieking angular guitar riffs and crashing drums, while set closer ‘Be Safe’ displays a more progressive side as Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo is projected onto big screens to join Ryan Jarman in spoken word. The Cribs last played Brixton Academy in support of the Sex Pistols and were predictably bombarded with beer and piss, presumably for not being ‘real’ enough. Tonight however they show their worth as headliners, and perhaps there’s a note of smug reflection as Ryan croons, "It weren't my best one, but who cares?" To which Lee tellingly replies, "That's the spirit".  

As Ryan recklessly hurls himself into the crowd as if it were last year's NME Awards all over again, it suddenly seems a long time ago that Katie Ting Ting was singing, "Kerching! Kerching!". Her words perhaps echo the reality of what tonight has really been all about but it's been fun nontheless. We're just raging 'cos we had our glow sticks nicked.