The Vaccines may be taking a breather from arenas, but they’ve brought a supersized show to this mid-sized venue, complete with mirror balls, matching white guitars and glowing neon amplifiers. There’s even a man in a 1970s-style satin Vaccines tour jacket, who runs on with a towel each time guitarist Freddie Cowan is showered in lager.
However, this gig has a real spit-and-sawdust frenzy that the band in skinny jeans won’t have experienced for a while. Cowan ends one song flat on his back, absolutely exhausted, while singer Justin Young yells: “Phew! Rock City!” It’s a properly uproarious rock’n’roll show.
It has been five years since the Vaccines joined the ranks of so-called “saviours of guitar bands” – past incumbents include the Strokes and the Libertines – and Young’s canny songwriting has an effective stock-in-trade quality. Songs about insecurities are delivered with retro Ramones/Beach Boy melodies and enough raucous energy to turn them into celebrations.
However, tasters from their forthcoming third album, English Graffiti, suggest they are broadening their palette. The funky Want You So Bad channels Duran Duran and Tears for Fears, while the excellent Dream Lover brings ghostly 1960s crooning to a Black Keys-style glam-stomper.
Mostly, though, this brisk hour-long set celebrates their adventures since they propped up a four-band bill at Rock City in 2011. Post Break-Up Sex and If You Wanna become huge singalongs, while the mass a cappella section on All in White sounds like the Liverpool Kop. Young, who has ditched his recent roadie-for-a-middling-80s-metal-band look for trademark floppy barnet, dives into the crowd and yells: “We’re the Vaccines, and we’ll always be the Vaccines.” After five years, the band seem to be enjoying it as much as their audience.
• At the Baths Hall, Scunthorpe, on 31 March. Box office: 0844 854 2776. Then touring.
