Hear'say

Removed from the massive PR blanket and novelty value of the Popstars TV show, these are testing times for Hear’Say.

The crowd at the Point reach a fever pitch early on and remain at a level of hysteria throughout, unbowed by the succession of awful boy and girl bands who are wheeled on and off in the name of support and future record sales. A fate which of course, has avoided Hear’Say but has also seen them thrust into the limelight at a ridiculously early stage in their career. Not to say that they don’t make a decent fist of it.

The show is an impressive production, from the opening moment when they absail onto the stage to the closing pyrotechnics. The problem is that, over the course of the two hours, the band’s material is stretched dangerously thin. The whole album is given an airing, proving itself to be perfectly pleasant throwaway pop and demonstrating that of the five, it’s Kym and Danny who can expect to move on when the whole thing inevitably crumbles.

Unfortunately, that still leaves a good hour to fill. So we get each member performing solo, we get three kids up on stage to sing in a Popstars pastiche but worst of all we get the band indulging in awful, clearly scripted, banter with each other and the audience. The effect is something akin to their ill thought out TV show, giving the gig a strangely 2D feel – they spend as much time performing to the video cameras as they do working Row M.

The evening moves inexorably towards the pop juggernaut that is ‘Pure And Simple’, which finally arrives in as perfect nick as ever, a song surely destined to be remembered long after Hear’Say have faded from memory.

Their fifteen minutes isn’t quite up yet and with another album due out before the end of the year, they’re obviously making the most of it while it lasts. “Hear’Say forever!” they cry at one point. Can’t see it somehow, but for the moment they’ll do just fine.