Frankmusik – Nottingham Rescue Rooms, Wednesday November 4.

Following a showy, energised and dazzlingly exciting set from beat-boxer Killa Kela – and a buzz-dampening no-show from DJ Starsmith – Vincent Frank and his three-piece band took to the stage amidst a shower of glowsticks, hurled onto the stage by his eager young tribe of followers. This hadn’t happened before, but Vincent took it in his stride with bemused good humour. (“Is it always like this in Nottingham?”)

Visibly more at home at the Rescue Rooms than he had been at the Arena, supporting Keane at the start of the year, Vincent commended us for being the “warmest” crowd so far on his autumn tour. Although Frankmusik has yet to enjoy the full scale commercial breakthrough of fellow electro-pop travellers such as La Roux and Little Boots, he has carved out a respectable niche within the pop landscape of 2009, with a string of middle-sized hits, a largely well-received album and a devoted online following already under his belt.

With work already underway on a follow-up album, just one new song was aired during the fifty minute set. It didn’t deviate much from the established Frankmusik template, which takes Eighties synth-pop as its starting point, and underpins its intelligently written love songs with hefty, galloping dance rhythms.

The set climaxed with the album’s opening track In Step (with an added section lifted from Rihanna’s Don’t Stop The Music), followed by a riotously received Better Off As Two. For his encore, Vincent treated us to a beautiful and powerful solo rendition of the Pet Shop Boys classic It’s A Sin, whose subtle, controlled passion hinted at future possibilities as yet unexplored.

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