THE ELECTRIC BOYS, Miss Behaviour @ Rescue Rooms, Nottingham 8/10/11

The Rescue Rooms has had a spruce up recently.

It looks modern, clean and very much fit for purpose as a venue for the 21^st century.

Unfortunately, that not a century to which Miss Behaviour belong. Their brand of lumpen AOR is so dreadfully dated that they would have sounded awful in the 80s.

But while they struggle to win over large swathes of the audience, to be frank the promoters could have put Jedward on tonight and it wouldn’t have mattered.

Tonight, you see, is all about the glorious return of the Electric Boys. The Swedes have been infrequent visitors to the UK over the years and have been fairly inactive since the mid 90s.

But they have jumped back onto the scene this year with killer new album “…And Them Boys Done Swang” and a series of headline dates.

And, listening to them tear into opening pair “Psychedelic Eyes” and “Groovus Maximus” it is tempting to feel bitter that we have missed them for so long. In the end though, it’s best to grin and clap along as the classics keep coming. Quite honestly, no one has ever done this type of funky hard rock as well as The Electric Boys.

Although the set is heavy on late 80s classics, the new album is well represented too with a couple of numbers, including a jolly “Angel in the Armoured Suit.”

Singer/Lead Guitarist Conny Bloom is still the epitome of cool, and bar the odd quibble – no "Reeferlord", the standout track from the new opus, for example – the evening is a triumph. The hour in the company of an old friend ends, the only way it could, with an encore of “All Lips And Hips.” 

“Thanks Nottingham, we’ll see you soon.” Says Conny. Hopefully, this time, he means it.