Much of the joy of listening to Air albums stems from their collaborations with breathy female singers. It is with some disappointment then that guest vocalists such as Jessica Banks and Lisa Papineau are conspicuous by their absence tonight. Still enigmatic duo Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin manage, with the aid of some technology at times, to provide accurate renditions of the female voice. They are assisted too by a Rasputin-lookalike of a keyboard player who contributes a falsetto, notably on ‘Surfing On A Rocket’, the likes of Pharrell Williams would struggle to emulate.

The set is dominated by tracks from current album Talkie Walkie and its prog rock predecessor ‘10,000hz Legend’. The elegantly coiffured Dunckel, who changes guitars at the end of each song, even playing a bass at one point, is insouciance personified but he does attempt a little rapport with the crowd when he introduces the sublime ‘Cherry Blossom Girl’. "The papers say we talk about sex all the time. But the truth is we are romantics. And we wrote this song to prove it," he insists.

It was their compatriot Andre Breton who gave the world surrealism. I’m reminded of this fact during an encore featuring a souped-up version of breakthrough hit ‘Sexy Boy’. As the concert concludes with a deranged jamming session, a dishevelled, dirty-bearded old man shuffles into the Academy with his weekly shopping, lingers for a while and then shuffles out again. Seriously weird. Just like the band.
(4/5)

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