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'.
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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.