If the ever-expanding number of NME tours tells us one thing, it’s that the demand for seeing bands work their magic in the live arena has never been greater. We’re constantly told that it’s touring, not record sales, that is keeping all but the very highest echelons of the music industry afloat. And who better to cash in than the NME? Their flagship NME Awards tour has long been a bastion of saleable yet credible guitar music and even better value, whilst the NME Radar tour has, since its 2005 inception, proved a perfectly-pitched arbiter of ‘who’s next’ for the indie masses. One need only look at the previous headliners such as La Roux (2009), Crystal Castles (2008) and Maximo Park (2005) to know that get it right more often than not. Now even the Radar tour has a sister-site to boost even lesser known acts, the so-called ‘Autumn Radar Tour’.
However, despite the tour’s track record, there’s a murmur of suspicion amongst tonight’s assembled throng that this year it might not come off for headliners The Joy Formidable. Anyone who has seen the band in pokier surroundings – such as an incendiary show at the Camden Barfly last December – will know that despite their simple guitar-bass-drums ensemble, the trio have always been able to hold their own (and then some) in the noise stakes. But that was in 300 person venues. The cauldron-like Koko, with its rising stories and deep, dingy pit of a central dancefloor could be a much more taxing engagement.
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