Live Review: Jet - O2 Forum Kentish Town, London 12/10/2024
Jet Set and Ready to Rock n’ Roll.
Opening for Aussie rockers Jet tonight, Villanelle draw a large crowd, perhaps due to interest in the lead singer Gene, being a Gallagher. Fresh from supporting the nationwide ‘Definitely Maybe’ tour and recent Malta Weekender, they produce a very confident performance, greeting the “Kentish T” crowd with a certain rock n’ roll swagger. It’s almost a surprise not to hear the familiar Manc drawl you would associate with the lead singer’s iconic father. Kurt Cobain seems to be a musical and stylistic influence with Gene sporting his famous baby blue Fender worn slung low.
Villanelle sound much more polished now than when they opened for Liam Gallagher at the O2 Arena back in June earlier this year. They are remarkably self-assured at the Forum tonight for a band only formed this year, with no songs released as of yet. A set highlight comes from their penultimate song ‘Pretty One’ with its dreamy guitar riff and heavier chorus, with the poetic lyric: ‘She looked just like an angel’ with the word angel stretched out in a long snarl. The band have a busy November with their forthcoming headline tour including a night at Hackney's Oslo, as well as supporting Blossoms on one of their big homecoming Manchester gigs.
Celebrating 20 years of their hugely popular debut album ‘Get Born’ Jet’s UK tour culminated in London’s Kentish Town Forum. This feels like a relatively intimate venue for a band who have almost eight million Spotify listeners, a fact more remarkable given that their most recent album came out before the launch of Spotify itself, a fact that is surely testament to their enduring appeal. Their set tonight includes four more recent songs, with new single ‘Hurry Hurry’ followed by their debut ‘Get Born’ in full. Having split up, Jet reformed in 2016 but released no new studio albums and separated again in 2019, reuniting for a second time in 2023 and showing no sign of breaking up again based on their chemistry and raw passion onstage tonight.
‘Hurry Hurry’ is their first new material in fifteen years as frontman Nic Cester has stated: 'Hurry Hurry’ is a little appetiser while we continue to work on our upcoming album. We’ve been playing ‘Hurry Hurry’ live with a great response from our fans in Australia, we’re really looking forward to debuting it live at our overseas shows in Italy, the UK and the US!”. It goes down a storm at the Forum, with its infectious howling chorus and pumping bass line.
‘Get Born’ achieved over 6 million sales and platinum status in the UK and featured their seminal single ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ which still gets plenty of radio airtime. The retro video still feels fresh, and the director of photography was the man behind Nirvana's ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. The song gets a rapturous reception, with the audience singing the first verse by themselves, and a joyous mosh pit taking over the standing area .
Stepping into a monitor to sing the slightly lower tempo ‘Look What You’ve Done’, singer Nic jokingly berated the crowd for starting to sing “What the fuck are you doing, this is my song”, with the track being a welcome change of pace from the frenetic opening half an hour of the show. Nic strutted around the front of the stage, even writhing in the floor, white bootcut jeans be damned. Offering up a verse to the audience with a cry of “Who knows the words?”, they responded with a word-perfect rendition.
Country-tinged acoustic song ‘Move On’ includes a stirring harmonica solo from the bassist. Nic tells the crowd “We have been writing songs together since we were 16 years old”. Looking at the audience there was a really wide variety of ages, from grey haired fans who had clearly heard the albums when they first came out, to newer fans who were barely born at the time.
‘Cold Hard Bitch’ brought a raucous response, with beer being thrown and the mosh pit in full force to the very AC/DC inspired mighty guitar riffs and screeching vocals. The band ended the ‘Get Born’ section of the set with the rarely played live ‘Timothy’, sung by guitarist Muncey and dedicated to his late brother with its heartfelt line 'Never used your legs to walk round in this whole big mess', as he died at only a few months old. After this the band departed, leaving Nic alone on stage playing acoustic guitar for ‘Shine On’ in a touching moment of hope and optimism. Ending the set on the full tempo ‘Rip it Up’ the band proved that on this form the new album is definitely one to look forward to.
Words by Brendan Sharp
Photography by Abigail Shii
