Pete Doherty of Babyshambles. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
With Easter barely over, it feels wrong to be thinking about Christmas tours, but Bloc Party and Babyshambles are forcing it on us. Both recently announced late autumn dates, and, just to end the year with a bang, they're playing the biggest venues they've ever headlined.
Notwithstanding the success of Bloc Party's new album, A Weekend in the City, which has sold 350,000 copies in the UK and reached number 12 in the US, it feels premature for them to be playing places the size of Alexandra Palace and the SECC. As for Babyshambles, whose Down in Albion just about managed 100,000 sales, it seems wildly optimistic to book them into 10,000-seaters such as Wembley Arena. So much so, in fact, that you have to wonder whether it's actually a ploy to keep Pete Doherty going for the next eight months by giving him something to aim for.
For both groups, this upward step will be accompanied by great expectations regarding presentation. Neither is especially noted as a killer live act, so can they cut it in venues where the back rows will be just a blur? Onstage, Babyshambles have little going for them except notoriety, while Bloc Party come across as insular and uncomfortable. How they'll manage to convert their fundamentally unspectacular selves into something that will speak to those distant balcony seats is anyone's guess.
But it's not just these two who will be tested and found wanting as they advance to bigger venues. Most of the UK's youngish guitar bands of the moment are no great shakes live. The resolutely unshowy Arctic Monkeys pay for their "normality" every time they step onstage and are mistaken for roadies, which doesn't bode well for their big Lancashire County Cricket Club shows this summer; Hard-Fi and the Fratellis (who respectively sold out five and four nights at London's 5000-seat Brixton Academy) are boring and Razorlight have the star quality of session musicians (thus proving that ego doesn't necessarily breed charisma).
As Oasis have shown, only they can get away with just standing around onstage; it works because of Liam Gallagher's aura, which has survived even house-husbandry and mid-thirties bloatiness. Nearly everyone else needs to make an effort. Muse's entire reputation rests on their live show, which concentrates on providing maximum bang for your buck and explains why they've sold out two nights at Wembley Stadium in June. But who else will be up to gigs of that size? It's a question that should be exercising the stadium bands of the future, particularly now that live music is eclipsing recorded music as the industry's most profitable "revenue stream". Indeed, when the self-appointed "best live band in the world", the Rolling Stones, finally retire, who will step into their shoes?
