With Emergency — the successor to their Top Three album, Wait For Me — due next month and two Brixton Academy shows booked in June, things are looking bright for Leeds quintet Pigeon Detectives.

Last night, though, they were, possibly for the last time, on more intimate territory, headlining one of four separate MTV Spanking New Music tours.

If they are a musical throwback to short, snappy, melodic, Buzzcockian guitar punk and they have a distinctly Arctic Monkeys-esque stroppy northern attitude, Pigeon Detectives are their own men.

As songwriter and guitarist Oliver Main unobtrusively went about his business, the show belonged to singer Matt Bowman.

Dressed in a pink T-shirt, his Kate Hoey curls soaked in sweat, he was obnoxious (the crowd threw plastic bottles at him; he hurled them right back).

Cockier than Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell, Bowman was full of self-regard and unafraid of preposterous teenage bravado, not least when he stood tottering on the drums during Take Her Back.

And, when he flounced off stage after the closing number, Wait For Me, he neglected to bid farewell but he did throw his microphone over his shoulder.

Such laudable hubris may yet end in tears, but for now Pigeon Detectives are worth investigating.