Scouting for Girls are a band of the social network generation. A bedroom project until plucked on the strength of a demo to play their debut gig at Glastonbury last summer. Things have happened quickly for this band, tentatively formed in 2005.

Sonically somewhere between Keane, Razorlight and The Kooks, although spikier live than recorded and BANG! Indie sensibilities meet perfect sing-along pop.

The tour is selling out fast, fuelled by radio-friendly single after radio-friendly single. Four, to date, have all done well; She’s So Lovely staying in the top ten for seven weeks.

A truly diverse crowd packs out Rock City, drawn there by lead singer Roy Stride’s ageless songs of love lost and unrequited. A more upbeat and confident performer than the character on record, he leads the energetic, recently upped to four-piece band when live, through tracks from their self-titled debut album – all open piano chords, choppy guitars and shoo-be-doo backing vocals.

After nine months of exhaustive global touring, SFG are as tight as pair of Johnny Borrell’s trousers. Walking on to the sound of the King himself and starting with I Need a Holiday - a one-two-three-four later, the band hurl themselves into a rapturous set of mid-tempo crowd-pleasers, every one a winner.

Album tracks as well-received as hits are always the benchmark of fan’s devotion. Tongue-in-cheek songs of 12-year-old heartbreak wrought courtesy of TV animal-hugger Michaela Strachan; of girls looking fitter in their MySpace picture; desires to be James Bond (but just for a day) - and of slow-time Mondays following festivals spent in cider bars - all perfectly encapsulates the adolescent soundscape of Britain in 2008.

There is a joy to this band’s playing – a confidence in anthems energetically played to an audience loving hearing them.

Teenage crushes, A-level revision, the holidays – songs and subject matter falling someway short of passing comment on third world debt, but all the better for it.

Scouting For Girls are playing everywhere from May, guaranteeing at least some summer sunshine on the cloudiest of days.

Photos by Dom Henry (c)

Scouting for Girls played at Nottingham's Rock City on Sunday April 13
 

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