Editors, O2 Academy (From Dorset Echo)

Editors, O2 Academy

6:15pm Sunday 21st March 2010 in

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Here is the reason you should always give a band a second chance. After watching Editors play the Southampton Guildhall at the end of last year, I was the most deflated I’d ever been after a gig – one I’d been genuinely looking forward to.

But when this Bournemouth gig sold out weeks in advance I thought their enduring popularity alone warranted another listen – a good decision, it turned out.

That’s not to say that this show was brilliant, though, just better than previous.

As a band, Editors do lack consistency and their live show is punctuated with peaks and troughs, with a few too many lulls throughout the 90 minutes. That said there are also numerous high points when hits from their first two albums are played with verve and passion – also Papillon from the latest album has the crowd moving from its opening notes.

In This Light and on This Evening, An End Has a Start and You Don’t Know Love all sound great – magnified by the venue’s impressive acoustics.

Blood and Bullets were personal highlights and one of the biggest disappointments of their Southampton gig, The Racing Rats, got the thumbs up this time around.

Munich suited the grand old Opera House building perfectly and Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors ended a set that had affirmed the value of a second chance.

Lead singer Tom Smith emerged for the encore to slow things down again on piano before all four reunited to wrap things up with the infectious Papillon and Fingers in the Factories.