Pete and the Pirates, Audio, Brighton, April 12 (From The Argus)

Pete and the Pirates, Audio, Brighton, April 12

9:05am Thursday 14th April 2011 in Music Reviews By Gary Scattergood

Let's be frank, 2011 hasn’t been grand so far.

Everyone’s skint, wars are raging and natural disasters are more frequent than a Katie Price divorce case.

What we need now is a good time. And with floor-filling indie disco tunes like Come To The Bar – complete with lines like “he’s got good shoes, he’s got sticky fingers, dancing around ’til the carpet gets thin” – now’s Pete and The Pirates’ time.

Three years ago their debut long-player Little Death was packed with more sure-fire singles than a trainspotters’ convention and on this show’s evidence, next month’s album One Thousands Pictures isn’t going to disappoint either.

Frontman Tom Sanders is a born entertainer, careering around the stage, arms flailing as the band rattled through their set, which sounded heavier though no less melodic than on record.

They played old favourites Come On Feet and Mr Understanding but newbies Little Gun and Half Moon Street reallyfiredupthe crowd.

The former, despatched three songs in, marked a change in pace and thundered along, while the latter was a slower pop classic, the likes of which The Killers used to excel at before Brandon Flowers seemed to forget what a tune was.

Combining quintessentially English, jaunty indie-pop with wry lyrics isn’t groundbreaking. But when it’s played with a charming, rather than arrogant, swagger and a generous helping of showmanship, it turned out to be just the tonic in these trying times.