Junior Boys @ Manchester Roadhouse (15.2.07.)

Occasionally you go to see a gig where the band really deserve better and this was one of those gigs. Playing in front of south of a hundred people (in fact, probably only just north of fifty), Junior Boys still managed, like troopers, to plough through a classy set of electro-ballads filled with the kind of nuance and subtlety that demands a more appreciative audience.

Even though there was only a handful of people here expressly to see the band, Jeremy Greenspan and Matthew Didemus played an understated blinder of a set that was perfectly paced and, at times, wonderfully touching. Relying heavily on songs from their dazzling sophomore album, So This Is Goodbye, each song sounded like futurist neo-torch songs, pulsing with muscle and heart.

‘Count Souvenirs’ sounds more bruised and rueful each time I hear it and loses none of its exquisite splendour live. ‘In The Morning’ gets a small number of the assembled moving their feet with its thrusting, gently jacking beat. A devastating ‘Teach Me How To Fight’, from first album, Last Exit, is as teary-eyed and elegant as its recorded counterpart.

The best is saved for last, as usual, with a driving take on ‘Under The Sun’ that has the few souls remaining enraptured and dancing away. As for Junior Boys, thankfully, they look as if they exist in their own little bubble and don’t need to feed off the atmosphere coming from the crowd to play to their best. Once they start getting the respect that they warrant, then their audience might start to catch up with them.

See more photos from the gig here.