Electric Picnic Live Report: Wet Leg - Electric Arena

You get a fair inkling straight away about how hot an act are when you turn up twenty minutes early and there's already a large crowd waiting. Current critical darlings Wet Leg might have struck some, like me, as just the latest spot-prize chancers on the ever-rolling Generation Game conveyor belt of indie rock but tonight's set proved us sad bastards very wrong.

Walking onstage to a bit of Ludwig Van Beethoven is a class move for a kick off, and it doesn't hurt to do it while looking Zanussi-level cool, but to then go into the joyous chug of 'Being In Love' practically levelled the place. Get the job done in two minutes, move on to the next song. Also class.

It was perhaps coincidental that during the pretty fabulous 'Wet Dream' I noticed that a lot of the more mature men around me, who are obviously in less than stable relationships, started to mouth a silent "Ah, Jaysus" at the sight of lead singer Rhian Teasdale, resplendent as she was in boots, a skirt the opposite of long, a truckers cap, and a shirt that must have shrunk in the wash. She also made strumming on a Telecaster festooned with stickers, just like my daughter tried to do to mine when she was three-years-old before she mysteriously found herself making her own way back from the woods, look like the only job that anyone should aspire to. I didn't react like that, of course, (I love you, Pia), but it was noticeable.

She looked amazing, as did Hester Chambers, giving it out on a Jazzmaster that either had a teabag or a bit of potpourri hanging off the headstock. Take pity then on poor Joshua Mobaraki, playing both keyboards and guitar, who is a damn fine looking man but even if he were the love child of Brad Pitt and George Clooney and a baby delivered by Dr Errol Flynn, he still wouldn't have got a look in.

'Supermarket', 'Ur Mum' ("When I think about what you've become, I feel sorry for your mum"), 'Convincing' with it's Curve-like groove, and the marvellously-arch 'Piece Of Shit' ("This Is A Love Song") all sounded fantastic and had this crowd, who knew every word at least as well as the band, losing their minds and throwing beachballs, wherever they found them, in the air.

The star-shattering guitar arpeggios of 'Angelica' - who brought lasagna to the party - were also beyond great but the closing 'Chaise Longue' was as cool as a power cut in Antarctica, heralded by Henry Holmes beating the shite out of his kit like it just demanded his wallet down a dark alley. They walked off to a howl of feedback before George Michael's 'Carless Whisper' blasted, almost immediately, out of the PA.

Friday's rock n' roll highlight? Probably. Ridiculously and enviably cool? Definitely.