It’s been a momentous twelve months for the lads from Deptford known as Athlete. Nothing is more indicative of the strides they have made than tonight. This time last year they playing support at Manchester Academy to Suede. A few months later they played to 600 people in the same city. Tonights return is nowhere near as low key. A venue upgraded from its smaller cousin Academy 2, the Academy is packed to the rafters.

The roof is raised as they take to the stage, and from the opening bars of Beautiful, you know what sort of a night it’s going to be. Since their last appearance here, their debut album, Vehicles and Animals has gone double gold. They have also built up a tremendous live reputation from appearances at Glastonbury, T In the Park and V. All of which is apparent tonight.

Beautiful evolves into singalong track El Salvador. The crowd are buoyant in the true sense of the word. What becomes apparent is that there is no stand out track on Vehicles and Albums. Each one has it’s own merits and is gratefully received by the fervent crowd. When the crowd aren’t bouncing they are singing. The slower title track of the album is accompanied by a thousand voices. Shake Those Windows does not actually do what the song suggests but only because the Academy mimics a disused aircraft hangar and has no windows to speak of. New track,Tourist suggests that the difficult second album wont be all that difficult.

Then we are down to it. You Got The Style is introduced. It didn’t seem as if the atmosphere could be raised a notch but it happens. Tonight “Its getting hot in here must be something in the atmosphere” never seemed more true. They throw in an obscure b side and noone minds because tonight Athlete can do no wrong.

The show ends with the anthemic Westside. “Wherever you look you can see that everybody wants to be part of the rock scene”. Athlete are now part of that scene and they have proved that they belong there.

Review by Paul Heyes.