It’s only 8.30pm, The Automatic aren’t due for another hour and a half but a floppy-haired teenager has already collapsed on the floor, his equally floppy-haired friends trying to pull him back up, but the alcoholisn’t letting him. He’ll regret missing The Automatic’s final night of an exhaustive tour that, apart from a month off in September, has been non-stop since January.

The Forum in Kentish Town is dominated by teenagers, from Emo kids to little rockers who won’t be seen without their black backpacks, to kids in trackie bottoms wearing sports jackets that will stay on throughout the entire night – obviously too cool for the cloakroom. A good smattering of people in their late 20s and early 30s suggest The Automatic are touching at the big time.

After sets from Frank Turner and Viva Machine, Alterkicks show genuine promise. A five-piece from Liverpool, their set stretches from Hunky Dory era Bowie to early Radiohead, strung together with tight songwriting reminiscent of The Kooks. Each song generates a lot of clapping but not a whole lot of ass-shaking until ‘On a Holiday’, released on November 13, kicks in. Ones to watch.

All of that endless touring by The Automatic seems to have paid off. This gig is the biggest show of their short careers – the growing fan base a measure of their impressive live reputation and the huge success of singles ‘Monster’ and ‘Recover’. All of this anticipation in the crowd bursts into frenzied moshing for opener ‘Talking About Us’.

Backed by three huge screens that broadcast live close-ups of the band, The Automatic are omnipresent – The Forum is swamped by their sound, their presence for just over an hour. The primal, head-splitting drumming of Iwan Griffiths syncs perfectly with the almost robotic singing of Rob Hawkins, while keyboardist and jester Alex Pennie controls the crowd - hopping from synth-stabbing one-handed to throwing himself across the stage as a backing vocalist.

‘Monster’, played half way through the set, is massive and the crowd are rampant. “That was loud,” says Hawkins. No kidding. ‘Seriously I Hate You Guys’ and encore-ending ‘Recover’ are triumphant, while a cover of Kanye West’s ‘Golddigger’ starts off wonderfully Rage Against The Machine-esque but ends up a mess.

So what next for The Automatic? New song ‘Time Equals Money’ showcases a heavier sound with an infectious chorus, but more variation is needed when they settle down to write the next album. “We’re off back to Wales,” says guitarist James Frost. “Back into a box under a rock somewhere in a cave.” It’ll be one hell of a noisy cave.
(4/5)