Gig played on 25/04/07

The View are on fire! We know this, because it's the name of their website, the slogan on their t-shirts, even the signature on their press officer's emails. So when the crowd start chanting it for the tenth time tonight it's hard not to wonder how much is spontaneous adulation and how much is marketing. Not that marketing is anything new in pop. From Elvis' hip swivels to the Sex Pistols' TV appearances to The Smiths' gladioli, even the greatest of artists have grabbed attention any way they can. The problem is that, far from being the greatest of artists, The View are so dishearteningly average and derivative.

So though it would be dishonest not to recognise the heroes' welcome they get here tonight, the only explanation can be that the young British public still hasn't gotten over being spurned by The Libertines and - like James Stewart in "Vertigo" - will moon after anything that reminds them of their lost love. With their scruffy debauchery, gang mentality and scrappily energetic songs, The View might have been precision engineered in a record company laboratory to fill the gap, though Pete and Carl's intelligence and louche charm seems to have been lost along the way.

To be fair to them, The View do occasionally sound different from The Libertines - but only when they are too sloppy and clumsy to copy properly, or when they are stealing something their heroes' stole first. So - catchy chorus aside - "Wasted Little DJs" still sounds like "Don't Look Back Into the Sun" being sung from the other side of a noisy motorway, while the queasy "Claudia" sounds like Kieren doing Pete doing Damon doing The Kinks. Worst of all is a frantic but flat run through Squeeze's "Up The Junction", seemingly offered solely to prove they've heard music from before 1995.

There are odd moments where something original threatens to reveal itself. There's an edge of small town desperation to "Superstar Tradesman" that no Londoner could capture, while the new "Fireworks And Flowers" has an off-kilter surrealism that is a welcome break from the full throttle pace employed everywhere else. But even these moments are spoiled by a sound that is tinny when it isn't muddy, or vocals that are slurry when they aren't squawky.

For all the applause and dancing of tonight's crowd, The View feel like they're a stop gap, a quick snack for the hungry. When the real "new Libertines" arrive, they won't sound like them note for note. Until then, The View may well be on fire, but on someone else's fuel.

by Jaime Gill