Everything about Hurts is epic. Now I’m well aware that word went out of fashion some point in the history of the world, but Hurts are bringing it back and it’s dressed in a lovely suit too. The only way you could describe this; the last date of their tour in their home town of Manchester, is as epic.

It’s only right then that one of the breakthrough bands of last year be supported by some of 2011’s hottest new talent, Clare Maguire. Maguire sadly is anything but epic. You can’t dislike her, but there just doesn’t seem to be enough passion in the world for me to even care about her. Dull is the word that comes to mind and onstage she is exactly this. She has a great voice and can belt out a tune there’s no denying, but then so can anyone from the over 25’s category on the x-factor. If you lived through the 90’s then you will be able to instantly conjure up what she sounds like by thinking of anyone who had a vaguely popular single that year. She did however wear a nice floaty dress in which you could see her underwear, so that’s something at least, she then proceeded to prance around the stage extending her arms at every available opportunity and waving them around. The audience obviously loved it because they are well dressed cutting edge indie folk who probably saw her perform in the café down the road from them while you were still an embryo.

I should probably now apologise to Clare Maguire and her fans for that sewage that just spewed from my fingers please feel free to leave horrible comments below.

Hurts. Luckily the main attraction offers up a much more delectable product for us to tap our collective and well styled feet to. With not much more than an albums worth of songs to offer up the set started with album opener and synth heavy ‘Silver Lining’ setting the chorus chanting tone of the gig. It’s hard to pick the biggest song of the night when all the songs are this big, but ‘Wonderful Life’ is a strong contender and the audience were always eager to please these local lads. Theo is possibly the best frontman around right now and works the mic-stand like nobody else; it was part prop, crutch, and propeller and allowed for some brilliant leaning which only emphasised key changes and choruses. Not big on the talking crowd-banter was kept to a minimum and clichés somehow avoided, this from the band who sings about rain more than the chart top 100 put together, but when Theo did offer us some pearls of wisdom it came in a northern drawl you just can’t get your head around.

As I’m sure many fans were, like me, upset about the distinct lack of Kylie Minogue the boys decided to throw in a cover of ‘Confide In Me’ to show her what she was missing. It was a highlight of the gig and sounded excellent in a strange Depeche Mode sort of way. They can’t escape the 80’s and to be honest who would want them to. The best summation of the gig I can think of is “They covered Kylie and it was fucking awesome.”

With only a one song encore I had wondered what was left for them to play until ‘Better Than Love’ kicked in with its strong vocal “Every second is a life-time.” Hurts might be good on record, but they are and will become ever greater live;  with all the components coming into play from dazzling light shows, sing-alongs, and stage presence working together to make them an unstoppable force.

With more material on the way Hurts are definitely one to watch.

The Teen Titans (although possibly the worst group of Superheroes ever assembled – even the Great Lakes Avengers could kick them firmly in their asses – Ok, they are teens though, but still…Robin) reimagined as the Breakfast Club. More specifically, as the Breakfast Club on the soundtrack cover.

It looks amazing!

It’s part of Cliff Chiang’s 12 Inch Remix series – where the talented comic book artist mashes up super heroes and 80s albums. You can see the rest here – and they are available as prints. I’m off to buy the Batgirl / Prince one.

At my school – an all boy type institution – you fell into one of three camps. You might have been an indie-loving sort – rubbish at football and with enormous sideburns to prove you didn’t care about sport. You could’ve been a games-lesson-loving trendy with your facial furniture shaved to the ear so that not a single wisp of sidie adorned your non-hippy head. Or, finally, you may have been a ‘grebo’ – a metaller who broke all the rules and grew hair long, neatly trimming undergrowth with a devastating operation called an undercut – a number one or two all the way around the area below your scalp.

Mr Frank Musik, it seems, is stuck somewhere between these three schoolboy stages.

It’s impossible to comment on this not-entirely-unpleasant single without mentioning it. It’s like a suede toupee, PVA glued to the scalp, catching the eye like a fly floating past the television. It rather overshadows the music, this cut, which isn’t difficult as it sounds like an inoffensive Lloyd-Webber vocal grafted over a directionless Eurodisco loop. The kind of thing you might hear as you wait outside Topshop as the woman in your life spends an eternity deciding nothing in there’s good enough for her.

But then – hark! Is that Holly Vallance?

The appearance of the Aussie beauty, previously thought lost forever, casts a new light on the song, on the video, on Frank, on the WHOLE DAMNED THING! Suddenly I thoroughly approve of Frank and his Musik. And I like watching Holly beating up muggers unconvincingly.

So hats off to Frank Musik. I lift my weird toupee in your direction, for giving some paid work to an antipodean actress who briefly rocked my world. In the 90s.

If ever you wanted proof of the pernicious effect of London on the cultural life of the nation, Jack Penate is it. In any other town in the country, Penate would be condemned to a life of spirit crushing toilet venue anonymity until he finally jacked it in and got a job in a call centre instead.

Tragically, Penate lives in London, home to the largest and most productive turd-polishing industry on the planet. Consequently, where there should be rejection, indifference and despair, we find A&R men, record deals and radio play.

If you wanted to say anything nice about Be The One (and there’s no real reason why you should), you could note that it’s not as grotesquely awful as, say, Torn On The Platform. But as comparisons, go we’re in Mussolini-not-as-bad-as-Hitler territory here.

Essentially Penate appears to have listened back to Matinee and gone ‘I know what this needs! More Spandau Ballet!’

Horrible grating horns underpin Penate’s new-found 80s-ish croon, which presumably is meant to convey a new sense of seriousness but actually makes him sound even more of a tit than on Matinee. This woefully ill-advised foundation is then over-burdened with more self-importance than you could shake a Bloc Party album at. Nonsense like “we asked the church to save our souls, they said we were too early and to join the fold” neatly demonstrates that you can take the singer-songwriter out of the sixth form, but you can’t take the godawful sixth form poetry out of the singer-songwriter.