Sunday 21/05/06 Louie, The Veras @ Academy 3, Manchester

As you enter the diddy hall that is Academy 3, you may be momentarily horrified that you have in fact arrived at a tragic Simply Red come-back concert. But no, clean your eyes/ears out you eejit, that’s not Mick Hucknall, that’s the bass guitarist from half-scouse outfit The Veras. Fresh from the Liverpool Barfly/Zanzibar circuit, complete with a degree in Popular Music (yes that’s a valid course), The Veras do not by any means disappoint, but they don’t succeed in causing any earthquakes either. The girating swagger and predictable riffs/lyrics are sufficiently convincing for tonight’s starter, and lead singer Nathan’s voice has pure, raw glamrock power, but all in all this serves only as a tantalising taster for things to come tonight.  

There is something quite cynicism-inducing about a gang of tight-trousered, scruffily clad young blokes leaping around on an over-crowded stage, but it would be fair to say that Louie carry it off a hell of a lot better than most of their peers. With just the right proportions of precociousness, charisma, energy and, dare we anticipate it, actual talent, this Yorkshire/Cumbrian/Kent six-piece capture the small crowd’s imaginations and don’t let go until they bound back behind the scenes and into, one imagines, very temporary obscurity.

Inevitable Libertines comparisons aside, Louie treat listeners to a more than pleasing range of danceable, punk-fuelled pop numbers. The catchy, slightly wacky new single ‘Trees’ hint that these lads may stick around for a while, depending on the nation’s shortening attention span. A band that cites the Kings of Leon as an influence cannot even hope to hide its apparent average age of eighteen, but Gigwise has to give credit to the sparky arrangement of musicians and the arresting quality of their sound. Efforts of portraying decadence are quickly swallowed by the obvious squeaky clean-ness beyond the dirty t-shirts but this unwitting innocence only charms the onlookers yet more.

Only the bassist looks bored by the prospect of being faced by this minimal but lively crowd, but then he is probably not yet of an age where a man realises that smiley people can look damn hot too. There is a distinct sense that we have interrupted a slightly off-beat Mick Jones recording session, which isn’t far off the mark as the man himself has seen Louie as worthy of filling a support slot for his band fairly recently.  But never mind the associations; even without these it is obvious that this group has that something that will have the A&R people falling over themselves for a piece of the action.

Louie has a little way further to go in terms of development, but something tells Gigwise that they have all the right factors on their side, and going with the two-lead-singers formula hasn’t done them any damage either. The night draws to an all-too-early Sunday close the excitable faces in the crowd say it all. Louie are sure to own at least fifteen minutes of dingy indie-club fame, perhaps even more if we’re lucky.