Monday 22/11/04 Luke Haines and The Auteurs @ Islington Academy, London

It’s a strange atmosphere tonight - sensible, yet edgy; subdued, yet excitable. The audience wanders in straight from the land of ‘Just-left-the-babysitter-with-the-kids-for-the-night’, leaving myself (brat free) feeling positively youthful. Ten years on from their gig at which my mother stopped me innocently trying to buy The Auteurs ‘Support your local antichrist’ t-shirt, I’m one of the many here tonight bouncing off the Islington Academy’s chromed walls with nostalgic excitement, at the thought of hearing ‘Chinese Bakery’ live once more.

However, the resulting gig is not so much disappointing, as plain…oh, alright, disappointing. Something just isn’t right. For a start, there’s no characteristic cello fluttering about in the background. Second, Luke’s ditched the frown. He’s refreshingly affable, and his renewed vim does show him in impressive form. Besuited like a charming Paul Bettany fresh out of some plush English gents’ club, he makes jokes about Jonathan King’s exploits at the ‘Walton Hop’, has a pop at artist Sarah Lucas (‘I Shot Sarah Lucas’), and generally speaks far more than he ever did back when The Auteurs were flavour of the month. Ex-Jesus and Mary Chain and Black Box Recorder’s John Moore is drafted in to perform on that most necessary of instruments – the saw. Resplendent in his deer-stalker hat and camp cheerfulness, their collaborations are a welcome and endearing change to Luke spitting out yet another of their slower, later songs from when his fixation with all things sinister and/or aeronautical spilt into his songwriting (Baader Meinhof, Meet Me At The Airport, Satan Wants Me, Light Aircraft On Fire etc).

Luke seems reluctant to give us what he knows most of us probably turned up for – their small but perfectly formed, twinkling handful of "hits". It’s not until the final "Right, we have 4 minutes left" that the momentous ‘Lenny Valentino’ is let out of its dusty trunk (no sign of ‘Chinese Bakery’ though). Before that, even the most ardent of Auteurs fan lets a yawn escape. Perhaps the Auteurs' major downfall was that their songs just weren’t fast enough. Always at the top end of clever, the menacing and confident set of symphonies are heart-swellingly glorious on occasion, but more often it’s like a set of showtunes for the grim reaper - volatile and brash, but not exactly energetic.