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Art Brut BD1 Live at St George's Hall, Bradford

Art Brut

Art Brut are powering through a storming set at Bradford's St George's Hall and I get the same feeling I did returning to school aged nine after a couple of weeks off with chicken pox.

Led by the wonderfully haphazard Eddie Argos who charges onto the stage like the Disney friendly version of Jarvis Cocker Art Brut are twice the band live than they are from any of the two albums and umpteen singles that have totally passed me by leading to this sense of schoolyard confusion.

They pound through My Little Brother and Argos gees his band up for every gushing of guitars with a communal call - "Are you ready Art Brut?" It is entertaining, is the stirring and as the bouncing kids at the front attest to it is stimulating enough to set bodies moving. They have an anthem - it is called Emily Kane - and it sounds fantastic. It is about Argos's fifteen year old squeeze and I'm back in the schoolyard and with my two weeks off everyone else has a new word, a phrase, a thing. I feel like an outsider.

As they are welcomed back to the stage with a chorus call of "Art Brut Top Of The Pops" which references some line in some song they have but is also exceedingly singable I'm struck by how well the four lads and a lass on stage have won over the four hundred odd at BD1 Live night in St George's Hall - or perhaps they have just won over me - but either way they deserve the encore and, I would suggest, your attention.