Friday 04/08/06 Animal Liberation Orchestra @ Borderline, London

At school, Gigwise was taught that nice was a dirty word. “It’s very lazy,” our teachers would say while beating us round the head with the Collins Concise, “use something more imaginative.” Having had this drummed into our head means that our tolerance for bland, uninspiring niceness is low to non-existent, and that Animal Liberation Orchestra will now suffer accordingly.

ALO – God bless them – are so nice you could gift-wrap them in cross-stitch and send them to neighbours as a thank you present. Their feel-good surfy funk (straight from the school of their mate Jack Johnson) is totally inoffensive soundtrack material, hand waving and sunny and blissfully free of any emotional impact. There’s no challenge, no feeling: even though the band are clearly having a lovely time noodling away on their party jams, it’s numbingly dull to hear.

And yet, they’re incredibly popular. If James Blunt and his ilk have taught us anything (and oh dear lord, have they ever), it’s that there are lots of people out there who regard music as little more than dinner party background stutter. There’s nothing wrong with that – it pays Zero 7’s bills nicely enough – but it explains why this gig is sold out. Tonight’s crowd want to see the new CD (2002’s 'Fly Between Falls', re-released earlier this year in the States) played exactly as it was at last week’s garden party. Someone tell us, what is there to be excited about, really? Oh look, someone’s got a flute out. Gosh.

Keyboardist / vocalist Zach Gill is stuck in the States and calls up the gig halfway through. He sings a bit to the crowd, who go nuts. It’s quite sweet. We start checking our watch. The toilets reek of dope and loads of Australians (natch) are yabbering on about how this is such an amazing gig. Is it though? Really? How stoned do you have to be to find this gig anything more than perfectly pleasant? The two kids sitting near us got it bang on the head.