The Magic Numbers

EMMA LEE

> UEA LCR, Norwich

The Magic Numbers have been one of this year's unexpected pop success stories.

Seemingly coming out of nowhere, the four-piece, made up of two sets of siblings, have been dubbed the band that got Britain smiling again. And they even found themselves at the centre of a media frenzy when they walked out of their debut Top of the Pops appearance when the presenter made a jibe about their weight.

While they might not look like your average pop stars it didn't seem to bother the crowd last night.

But while Forever Lost and Love Me Like You were the sunshine radio hits of the summer, the rest of their Mercury Music Prize-nominated album is slower - would the feel-good factor be lost live?

The show kicked off with The Mule - not a natural choice of opener with its discordant key changes, but it was followed by the countryesque Long Legs, which livened up the crowd.

Lead singer Romeo Stodart wore his trademark Cheshire cat grin throughout - and the audience joined in when the band launched into Forever Lost, a ridiculously cheery tune with melancholy lyrics.

It's a bit of a bizarre spectacle when 1000 people are singing “Looks like it all went wrong, what am I to do?” with huge smiles on their faces, clapping in unison and bouncing up and down.

Other highlights of the set included Close Your Eyes, which showed off the girls' voices to spine-tingling effect and the new single Love's Again.

It was unlikely that anyone left the gig last night feeling blue - as long as they hadn't listened to the lyrics too closely.