As another wave of teenage girls hit the difficult years, a vacancy for a new boyband opens. Fresh-faced, half-teenage themselves and with Harry Styles-alike singer Brad Simpson, The Vamps were as bubbly as expected.
Refreshingly, the foursome turned out to be their own men: there were no dance routines, no costume changes and they even broke the chaste spell when they declared that High Hopes was “all about sex”, to the despair of the already awkward parents present.
Without appearing to hunt credibility, they played their own instruments rather than rely on a band. They covered My Chemical Romance's Teenagers and channelled Paul Simon’s Cecilia on Oh Cecilia (Breaking My Heart).
Tellingly — if we forget the frenzy generated by the unfounded suggestion that vests would be removed — the loudest cheers were for McVey’s guitar solos. The Killers-lite Risk It All and the Beyoncé and Rihanna name-checking skank of Girls On TV were finely crafted. On the standout closer Can We Dance a young stage invader evaded security and chased a terrified McVey around stage.
They didn’t always help themselves, though. Beginning proceedings with their Oh Cecilia (Breaking My Heart) video suggested a lack of confidence; McVey flogging seats for their 2015 arena tour (“tickets are available really soon!”) as dates and details appeared on the screen behind them was embarrassingly tawdry, while clumsy attempts to dump four distinct personalities on them via video segments fell predictably flat. And, as we all know, a lengthy drum solo is tedium writ large whatever the genre.
All the same, there was real joy in seeing a band revelling in everything going their way. They won’t change the world of course, but they might make it a little better. There’s a vacancy: The Vamps are the men for the job.
The Vamps play Eventim Apollo Oct 15. 0844 249 4300 , eventim.co.uk/eventimapollo
