It is officially the hottest day of the year so far, and breathing is a sweat producing exercise. Industrial-sized cartons of water are poured over the faint audience. But, onstage, singer Martin Rossiter is dressed in a suit. A long-sleeved, long-trousered, very dark suit. Over a very dark shirt. The drummer, beanie-hatted and t-shirted, is the only band member who looks like he isn't on his way to a well air-conditioned office meeting.
Gene wouldn't be Gene without classy tailoring, their smart dress the reflection of an introspective intellectualism as English as the midday sun. The elegant, mid-late nineties wing of Britpop (Menswear, Geneva, Rialto) might have crumbled, but, despite a quiet couple of years - during which they were dropped by Polydor - they still remain among the ruins, selling out venues and polishing off albums (their fourth, 'Libertine', due in September).
Such relative longevity and popularity is still no excuse for tonight's introduction, so pompous and drawn-out it could put Robbie Williams to shame. A changing montage of street scene visuals (to repeated bars of 'Be My Light, Be My Guide') kind of loses its appeal after you've battled with the inner meaning of a park bench for the tenth time.
Thankfully, we soon get something amusing to look at: Rossiter dancing. He wanders about, pointing the mic at the audience, arms flailing with the overblown gestures of a pierside entertainer (bring on the tinny pipe organ and a bow tie) . Thus the soul-searching gravity of the set is rescripted - what, on record, are late-night, alone-in-your-garrett inducements to contemplating your life between chapters of Sartre, have become audience-unifying, self-ironising (Rossiter flexes his muscles to 'Olympian') and actually fun inducements to, er, contemplating each other's lives. Loudly. And with laughter.
Meanwhile, the strident chart-botherers 'Where Are They Now?', 'As Good As It Gets' and 'Fighting Fit' are anthems of triumph, highbrow drinking songs complete with jubiliant heaven-fisting.
The fans chant along to 'Is It Over?', despite its being new and unknown, but this might have something to do with the fact that it's yawningly repetitive and joining in is the only way to fend off sleep. Snoozing to other unveilings 'We'll Get What We Deserve' and night-closer 'Somewhere In The World' is less an option, because, perhaps in an ill-advised moment of anxiety about sounding formulaic, they've added dirty blues rhythms and twanging Eastern and country riffs.
Gene are far better when they just accept themselves, as on 'Walking In The Shallows'. A trademark Gene ditty, it's all fayness and feeling in which Rossiter is in danger of being strangled by his own falsettos. Fab.
"The future is ours" he sings on 'We Could Be Kings'. Well, maybe not entirely, but, if tonight's anything to go by, they should be guaranteed a decent helping.
