Klaxons, Oslo - music review

Keira Knightley would be a distraction at most gigs, so it’s encouraging for Klaxons that fans were watching the band rather than the Hollywood star standing behind me.

The big glasses she’s been wearing while accompanying keyboard-playing husband James Righton on tour helped Knightley go largely unnoticed, though it was Klaxons’ fired-up comeback that kept the audience focused on the stage.

Singer and bassist Jamie Reynolds roared his appreciation at playing this new venue in their “spiritual home” of Hackney and whipped up the crowd with a wide-eyed, stroppy rendition of Atlantis to Interzone. Righton dedicated their yelping, indie-dance anthem Golden Skans to “ravers old and new” in this sweaty club.

It was soon apparent that the garishly clad Klaxons had lost none of the madcap energy that helped their debut album win the 2007 Mercury Prize.

However, sales collapsed for the follow-up and Klaxons remain in a precarious position ahead of their third album in June. So it was with a sigh of relief that Reynolds announced they were back in the charts — albeit number 33 in the mid-week update.

There is No Other Time, the classy single that might save Klaxons, had them muscling in on the Nineties house revival. Yet the clubby Love Frequency seemed sterile compared with clattering old favourite Gravity’s Rainbow, featuring wobbly falsetto from Reynolds and Righton.

If the latest tunes lacked the personality of their new-rave peak, at least Klaxons still sounded like a big band even in a small venue. And it doesn’t hurt to have a Hollywood fan in tow.