Air @ Somerset House, London

I've been waiting a long time to see Air live and in all, it was worth the wait. The gorgeous surroundings of Somerset House, along with the rare and glorious sunshine in London this last week helped with the night, but still, unlike a fine French wine, they don't seem to have aged as well as I had hoped.

The French duo of Nicolas Godin (twangs the guitars and various world instruments with variable degrees of skill and energy) and Jean-Benoit Dunkel (Moogs, Korgs etc, amongst his banks of synthesizers which a little man came out and tweaked after every tune...cute) started with a few mellow numbers from their Love 2 latest album, before giving the crowd what they were desperate for, a few 'classics' from their back catalogue. These worked fine in the warm mellow surroundings.

Unfortunately as good as some of their older works are, mainly from their two quality albums 'Moon Safari' and' Walkie Talkie', the new stuff just doesnt quite cut the french mustard in my opinion...even the energized twangy shuffle of "Bee the Bee", and the electroid fun of classic "Sexy Boy" just didn't get the crowd as excited as they should have been. This was also due to the lack of energy in their performance and also any visual/lighting ingredients on stage.

Despite all that, there were a few highlights here and there, "Cherry Blossom Girl" sounding particularly sublime. Also of note was the encore which was a lenghthy warped psychedelic version of one of their original singles off their debut EP, Premiers Symptoms, entitled "Le soleil est près de moi" which translates as "the sun is near me", and it was all evening in a round about way.

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