Ellie Gallagher
The grins on the faces of mid-pubescent crowd widened as the sirens of Hideaway signalled the Mystery Jets’ entrance, rolling out the opening of their set with fingers flying, but bodies still and faces straight
(A little more vigour would be needed to impress, especially after less than enthusiastic support act, Golden Silvers, whose success can only be attributed to ambitious and vicarious mothers).
By their second track, their most recent release, ‘Half in Love with Elizabeth,’ the Jets brought out their London charm and subtle cockiness that allows them to get away with their cheeky image and clumsy lyrics with such grace.
Better-known tracks of the current album, ’Twenty One,’ were interspersed with several tracks from their previous album, ‘Making Dens,’ with ‘The Boy who Ran Away’ engulfing the band, whipping them into frenzies, and blurring the boundaries between instrument and musician.
‘Behind the Bun House‘, an unlikely choice for their final song, took the album version and tore it to shreds. With Harrison asking, “Are you ready to dance?” — a slightly baffling question in the context of the melancholic, rattling track — it somehow proved more than fitting as the crowd answered with raucous movement to the tune’s boastful command.
In an unexpected act of kindness, or perhaps self-indulgence, the band lingered after the show, loitering in the foyer with large crowds of goofy faced girls circling each of them. Alarmingly, I found myself wishing the dinner proposal Will was entertaining from one baby-faced girl had, in fact, come from my mouth. Like the rest of the enthused crowd, it looked like the intrigue of the appropriately named Mystery Jets had got the better of my own sensibilities
