ELECTRIC PICNIC: Razorlight takes us back to the noughties on the Main Stage

Fresh off the rounds of summer festivals, Razorlight made their return to Ireland today for their Main Stage performance at Electric Picnic. The mid-noughties indie rock stars have done a lot of remodelling since their inception with only frontman Johnny Borrell remaining from the original crew. He's curated a hell of a band behind him though with incredible guitarists and a stellar drummer.

Opening with their hit, 'Before I Fall to Pieces', this was already evident: David Ellis was dancing up and down the neck of his guitar, plucking the infectious melody. And as the cameras panned between the band members quite frequently, the one smiling face of the man behind the drums was a nice respite from the otherwise glum or indifference everyone else seemed to emote.

'In The Morning' was a dancer-friendly tune and those who had space around them sure utilised it. Like they say, dance like it's 2006! No? Okay, well people were doing it anyways. And – bear with me here – in the most-musical and least-old-lady way of saying it, the bass volume was perfect. No really, hear me out: it's rare that a band goes on stage and you spend time listening to the bass line, but they wrote some great stuff for Harry Deacon and being able to hear it was a nice plus.

Borrell shredded his strings in 'Don't Go Back to Dalston' from the first Razorlight album. He stood oddly still during the verses and went absolutely wild during the bridge, dancing and strumming feverishly, but never straying from centre stage. As soon as he started moving, the crowd caught on to the energy and reciprocated. Of course, as the song faded out and the opening strums of 'Golden Touch' started, the crowd roared in a reminiscent "Oooh!". The dancers of the crowd were nowhere to be found now that the field had filled in, so people resorted to the bend-one-knee-to-the-beat move. Probably for the better as they had to focus on singing their hearts out. One odd man out jumped onto his mate's shoulders and was living his best life up there. For a moment we were thinking: is Razorlight officially back?

That energy dissipated fast when they moved on to 'Midsummer Girl' off their latest album. The knee benders took back to their beers and the crowd was much less interested in the band's new work. After all, we came for the likes of 'America'; the Razorlight we knew and loved.

As if on cue, they took it back with 'Before I Fall to Pieces', which had the olden day fans oo-ing along to the opening guitar part. When Borrell yelled "Come on!" in the bridge and held his hands above his head to clap along, the crowd instantly reciprocated.

If you're catching the pattern here, the next song wasn't exactly connecting with the audience who died back down with 'In the City'. Borrell walked around the stage as if he were lost and the band just played along in the background seemingly waiting for him to do something. Maybe it was rehearsed that way, but it all felt a little unexpected as if nobody really knew what was going on; at least the crowd certainly didn't. Borrell still has that unmistakable vocal delivery though, and he proved he can still rock on in 2019 at the end with an impressive repetition of "It's all" ranging from calming to melodic to near-scream.

At the end of the set, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who wasn't satisfied with the show. After all, the lads worked through an impressive length of their original content and their sound is largely reminiscent of what people fell for over a decade ago even though only Borrell remains from that era. The energy ebbed and flowed, but perhaps it was just an unfortunate side effect of having an early afternoon slot on Sunday. Overall, the lads had an alright bout on the Main Stage.