One Night Only, never before has a name encompassed so much interminable irony. Looking uneasy without their safety-net target audience normally composed of fifteen-year-old beauties of indeterminable sex and Hoxton haircuts, the Yorkshire band are out of their depth in this over-18’s nightclub. It is never going to be easy to win over a crowd of inebriated revellers on a Saturday night whose dancing tunes have been extinguished in an attempt to force them to watch you. ONO are painfully aware of this fact and the band’s jazzy attire and freshly buffed winklepickers do little to distract from the looks of panic, (or was that boredom?)on their faces as they take to the stage. Comprised of five spritely teenagers, with the preposterously beautiful lead singer George Craig perhaps providing a clue to the mystery of their 27,000 Myspace friends, the band stumble their way through their short set without an ounce of emotion; even after their first single Just for Tonight rewards them with several twitters of recognition from the dwindling crowd.
Onstage there are no smiles, no outlandish stage antics, no light-hearted banter to do the job their music can’t. It’s worth mentioning that in consequence, the audience is possibly the most unresponsive ever recorded in history. There is not so much as a solitary mosh-pit aficionado to be seen, let alone people fighting for the coveted position against the front railings. Ah, so they’re only young, you say. Give them a chance? In today’s fast paced world of music there are not only a million bands that are doing it better, there are a million bands that are doing it better and are even younger. There is no room for error; it is no longer enough to be a sharply dressed, pretty face in the unforgiving milieu of new music. And, if they’ve any sense, the younger crowd’s opinion will soon echo the disdainful judgment of the audience members at Push. One Night Only? Here’s hoping.
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