In November 2004 the lead singer of The Vines (Craig Nicholls) announced he had Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of autism). Many music sources believed that it would be a while until they did any touring, if at all. I feel especially fortunate then that they have started once again, and that I bought some tickets for their London gig on Tuesday night.

They performed at The Forum in Kentish Town, a very appropriate setting to see any rock band perform. The Forum is a decently sized venue with two floors (the second with seating), but the best part is downstairs where it is easy to get a good view of the stage.

The Vines played a great number of songs from both of their albums, Highly Evolved and Winning Days, and a handful of songs from their soon-to-be-released album, all of which the audience completely lapped up. We stood downstairs, close to the front and right on the edge of the frenzied crowd that moshed almost all night long. A huge number of people even got into the crowd surfing, and though I didn’t count exactly how many people security lifted and escorted out, it would have been easily over 30! I thought The Vines performed extremely well and I was thoroughly impressed in the encore when they got the entire crowd singing with them to their cover of Outkast’s Ms Jackson song.

TheKua.com Rating: 7 out of 10