“Roos-ter! Roos-ter!” These words were being chanted around the Rats before they had even appeared on stage, prompting a distinctive sense of anticipation for this young band who have already secured themselves a rung on the ladder by appearing at V festival in a couple of weeks time. But before them, we had a seemingly grumpy Serial POP onstage, who proceeded to deliver a show chocked full of tub thumping rock, despite their initial surliness. By the fourth song, they warm up we begin to see exactly what everyone's been raving about – nasty mangled edgy Britpop, the ugly side of the Super Furry Animals perhaps, alternating with spoken word rhythm and ending with discordant solos slicing into a more cohesive chorus pattern.
But Rooster. Ahhhh Rooster. With the baying (or should that be crowing?) members of the already hot & sweaty crowd firmly in place, Rooster took to the stage. Once the classic rock riffs curve through the room, it was obvious why so many had turned out to see them. They reminded me instantly of the arena rock of current bands such as Velvet Revolver, in the whole clean cut, very circa ’82, guitar work paired with gruff yet still poppy vocals (apparently the band are keen fans of VR). Second song in provided a more funky bass driven edge, leaning toward the sound of Replenish-era Reef, not least because the singer’s own voice is a damn near perfect imitation of Gary Stringer’s without the annoying West Country twang. This kind of thing will go down brilliantly to the early birds in the arena at V festival, all still half asleep, and needing a good kick up the arse to get going.
Rooster already seem to have an ear for commercially viable rock music; from the perfect crunch of the guitar radiating pure sexiness to the power of the big thrusting chorus (particularly in Bullet-proof) – there’s definitely a market for this brand of typically “American school” rock. And in Nick Atkinson, we already have a confident and self aware front-man made to go, the forefront of the crowd totally digging it and jumping around whilst the beguiling nu-rock/pop hybrid they’ve got going coaxes even the most hardened listener out of general apathy. What’s unmissable is the amazing instinctive fluidity between the band members to deliver excellently timed bites of funk bass, caustic slabs of knife edge guitar action whilst the drums lock everything down tight, last song 'You’re So Right for Me' providing one last hit of sexy, dirty, summer-night noise before curtains down.