Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 16/04/08

First impressions? The drummer's a problem. Sporting novelty sunglasses and perched atop an absurdly elevated drum riser, Jules de Martino is clearly suffering a major case of frontperson envy. He contributes loud, out-of-tune backing vocals. His drumming style is irritatingly showy, even though he's being drowned out by backing tracks (you sometimes wonder if his kit is even amplified). Bluntly, he's painful to watch. So, with The Ting Tings being a duo, you've no option but to shift your gaze to singing guitarist Katie White.

Initially, this is fine, as the energetic White guides The Ting Tings through opener (and recent single) "Great DJ", which transcends inane lyrics to emerge as a likeable piece of electro-tinged garage rock. What's more, you're ready to cut these Salfordians some slack, thanks to their display of excellent taste in choosing Talking Heads' "Once In A Lifetime" as their intro music. Things go quite swimmingly, in fact, until the arrival of "Fruit Machine", at which point we're in trouble. White puts her guitar down and, as she starts to dance awkwardly, visibly struggling to decide what to do with her hands, you suddenly realise how nervous she is, and it makes you nervous too.

At this precise moment, their myth is broken. Only a year after forming, The Ting Tings became a staple on bands-to-watch-in-2008 lists. Tonight's show is the culmination of the Sony-signed act's first headline tour, and it's plain throughout that they've been promoted ahead of their time. They generally keep their heads above water during the pacier, rockier songs, in which White's distorted guitar is high in the mix, but elsewhere they're cruelly exposed, never more so than during the ghastly "Traffic Light". As the song's creaky metaphors pile up, White's attempts at a vampish torch-singer routine evoke a drunken bout of karaoke.

Including the encore, The Ting Tings play around eight songs tonight, and are onstage for little more than half an hour. The brevity is born of necessity: there are only 10 songs on their debut album, and the singles don't have b-sides. Nonetheless, when they first exit the stage there are boos as well as angry shouts for an encore. When the duo return, they wisely play their album's title track and strongest song "We Started Nothing", but even here a false start and a strop about guitar tunings suggest a band out of their depth.

It seems fitting that tonight's main set concludes with the catchy (if slightly gimmicky) "That's Not My Name". With the band getting a major label push at a time when the rehearsal room beckons, you wonder if, in a year's time, anybody will remember White's name, her band's or even that annoying drummer.

by Niall O'Keeffe