Back to Academy 1 tonight for Athlete, who are promoting their new album, “Beyond the Neighbourhood”.

Athlete are best known as “one of those Coldplay-type bands”, which is understandable, but I reckon this does them a disservice.

Over the years they do seem to have devolved into a bit of of an identi-kit indie outfit, but if you take a listen to Coldplay’s “Parachutes” and Athlete’s “Vehicles and Animals”, their first (and, in both cases, best) albums, you’ll hear that they at least started out with very different sounds, before (I suspect) Athlete’s A&R man had a word in their ear about how they could sell more records. Athlete always stood out as the more interesting of the two, with their quirky bleeps and beeps and rather less serious take on the world. “Vehicles and Animals” was in my CD player almost non-stop throughout Spring of 2004 and I’ve fancied seeing them live ever since. Tonight I got my chance.

Kicking off (if I remember correctly) with one of their best known hits from “Vehicles…”, “You’ve got the Style”, they set the tone for an awesome set. The list included plenty more of their hits, of course, including “Beautiful”, “El Salvador”, “Halflight”, “Tourist” and, memorably, “Wires” (viewable in beautiful camera-phone-vision below) amongst the best of their album tracks. As mentioned, their later sound can, in places, sound a little too Coldplay/Keane/Snow Patrol-esque (read: dull) to really grab me in the same way that their earlier recordings managed, but there’s still some decent songs to be heard here, and at no point did the night seem to drag (I was seriously concerned about the possibility of this after the yawn-fest that was Air Traffic).

If, somehow, you’re not familiar with Athlete, I do recommend having a few listens to “Vehicles…” and moving on from there. If you like your music “indie” but not too “alternative”, they’ll do you quite nicely.