Review: Editors @ Apollo, Manchester (From This Is Lancashire)

Review: Editors @ Apollo, Manchester

10:52am Wednesday 17th March 2010 in

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There’s something a little bit uncool about Editors.

Frontman Tom Smith has a likeable awkwardness on stage, he looks like a rock star but he doesn’t quite act like one.

He never seems to lose control. He’s definitely more Jarvis Cocker than Liam Gallagher, but then that is no bad thing.

He can’t keep his hands still, waving them about in Cocker-esque fashion — but he’s not yet at that level of geekdom.

Then there’s the voice. That distinctive vocal doesn’t sound quite as unusual on stage, but it is still there, and I’d rather hear it than not.

His deep warble sounds out of place, coming as it does, from such a wiry frame — but at least it is different. Give me different and annoying over bland and unforgettable any day.

Smith is very much a technician, fiddling with his two keyboards and an on-stage box of computer wizardry.

His moves are carefully choreographed in front of an impeccable set and stunning light show — and each and every song has been rehearsed to within an inch of perfection.

But that is the problem. Watching, you never get the feeling that something unpredictable — or dare I say magical? — is going to happen.

Highlights include Back Room, An End Has A Start, You Don’t Know Love, Bullets and Munich.

But it is not until Editors rip into their final song, Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors, that Smith finally starts playing to the crowd, venturing out to the front of the stage.

The place is jumping, so much so that you wonder why they don’t crank it up to 11 a little earlier in the show.

Papillon gets a similar response in the encore, but looking around, you realise that there is something a little bit uncool about the crowd too.

You spot 30-something couples, checking their watches, thinking, ‘If this goes on any longer, we’re going to have to pay the babysitter overtime’.

But Smith very politely and effusively thanks his obedient audience, walking off stage at quarter-to-eleven, and no one misses the last bus home.

It is a meticulous performance. Editors don’t put a foot wrong, there is not a hair out of place — but I think they have more in their locker.