There’s something a little bittersweet about seeing music in the Astoria at the moment, in the knowledge that you’re seeing it in its last days. Soon it’s to be demolished to make way for the Crossrail project. However, if my spirits were slightly knocked by the knowledge of this fact, this gig made up for it.

First on were Florence and the Machine. She (they?) had a pretty unique sound, and her voice is effortlessly powerful. Bouncing around and hitting a floor tom harder than a floor tom’s designed to be hit, she seemed to be having an amazing time, something that soon spread into the audience. Another one to watch.

MGMT were also top-notch. Although coming on remarkably late (the 10:30 start suggesting that they were considerably more interested in the outcome of the Champions League Final than I was) they put in a great set. The album Oracular Spectacular contains more singles on it than you could shake a single-collecting stick at and so the main part of the set storms by with nary a hitch.

The encore, on the other hand, trundled off midway into a lengthy and dull intrumental patch. Losing this would have made the set as a whole much, much tighter, even if it was shorter. Also, the finale of Kids was performed almost entirely prerecorded which might have been fun for them, since they got to bound around the stage, but I didn’t pay to see them live in order to see one of my favourite songs performed by singing along to a recording, I can do that on my own at home.

Anyway, they weren’t half bad. I hope that they don’t over-release from this album and get down to making a new album reasonably soon, but for the time being I definitely recommend checking them out if your paths cross during festival season.