One Direction, HMV Apollo Hammersmith - review

Their album, Up All Night, has found its way into half a million homes and their tour has sold out quicker than you could ask when McFly might re-form. They even tickled the tabloids when Harry Styles embarked upon an apparent relationship with a woman almost twice his age, who happened to work for X Factor. Live, they turned out to be not quite as others. Mindful of their screaming young audience, they were neither rude nor lewd: their unnaturally bushy eyebrows promised a Denis Healey tribute evening and, as if hijacked on their way to a young fogey convention, they dressed for a golf club rather than a night club.

The cheapness of their show turned out to be One Direction's salvation. The lighting was feeble, there were no big screens, lavish sets or even special effects, unless some toxic-smelling fake snow counts.

Moreover, there was no choreography to speak of and when they did try some vaguely co-ordinated walking during Everything About You, they were as together as the Pamplona bulls. But this left the
boys marooned to their own devices. Having the guts and nous to avoid gloopy ballads, they fared rather well.

As if understanding that this time next year they might be asking if you have a Nectar Card, they read tweets (regrettably they didn't appear to have received mine) but they hurtled through their shiny pop, especially the tub-thumping Save You Tonight and they added a Coldplay-esque uplift to Use Somebody, adding more joy than its authors, Kings Of Leon, ever managed.

Wisely they avoided anything harmonically intricate but when they belted out What Makes You Beautiful as one, they blew away the cobwebs of prejudice and prior assumption.

One Direction
HMV Apollo
Queen Caroline Street, W6 9QH