Watching Muse one year at Reading, I upset my festival companions by breaking into raucous laughter whenever Matt Bellamy burst into one of his ridiculous arias. I am not then the best person to ask along to a Wild Beasts gig. For lead vocalist Hayden Thorpe’s falsetto suggests a childhood career as a choral singer with a penchant for putting up posters of Aled Jones in his bedroom.

Originally named Fauve, the French term for wild beast, Thorpe formed the band with guitarist Ben Little at Kendal’s co-ed Queen Katherine School in 2002. An educational establishment with not one, but five, extra-curricular music groups. A school that considers itself “as forward looking, whilst retaining the best of the traditional features and values.”

A lot like their soon-to-be-famous alumni, Thorpe and Little. Who, despite being based in Leeds now along with fellow bandmates Chris Talbot and Tom Fleming, eschew a place in that city’s new music scene. Unless I’ve overlooked a surge in Tiny-Tim-fronting-Tiger-Lillies wannabes.

(4¼/5)