JEDWARD - Olympia Theatre **
There must be some mistake, surely. An all-seated Jedward gig? Stools on stage? Moody lighting? I mean, how are you supposed to scissor-kick while sitting down? As it turns out, the seating plan is abandoned when John and Edward Grimes take the stage to a chorus of ecstatic squawks but in any case, it certainly doesn't signify a newly matured version of the twins who were deposited into our lives via The X Factor five years ago. Mature? Pffft. They may have recently turned the ripe old age of 23, but Jedward don't do 'mature'. Neither do their audience: alongside the excitable kids, tweens and teenyboppers waving glowsticks and homemade signs are a group of grown women dressed as Crayola crayons. At least there's someone who looks a little more out of place than us and the smattering of exasperated dads rubbing their temples.
They waste no time in launching into an excitable 2012 track 'Luminous'; new songs 'Perfect Wonderland' and 'Free Spirit' quickly follow, as does zippy 2012 Eurovision entry 'Waterline'. Singing along rather shakily to a backing track, it's essentially group karaoke with a thousand screaming kids and songs that aren't actually very good. An acoustic covers set doesn't fare much better, with three aborted attempts at Coldplay's 'Sky Full of Stars' and a shaky singalong of Canadian band's Magic! hit 'Marry That Girl'.
Yet it's never been about the music with Jedward, has it? The duo's shared defining characteristic is their space cadet personalities, and their stream-of-consciousness ramblings between songs undoubtedly prove more entertaining (if a little patience-fraying). Nonetheless, the whole thing is unquestionably shambolic. There is no light show, no sense of rehearsed 'show' usually peddled by pop acts, nor is there even a basic backdrop, and the gig subsequently feels rather cheap and a little exploitative. Nevertheless, the shrieking voices and beaming smiles defiantly challenge any grown-up cynicism – and that's just John and Edward's.
