The Temperance Movement, tour review: Retro swagger and moves like Jagger

With The Temperance Movement’s modern take on classic rock sitting alongside several David Bowie records in the top 20, the current album chart is closer to the sound of the early Seventies than 2016.

In fact their second album, White Bear, owes more to American bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd and the British blues explosion than Bowie. But The Temperance Movement still paid tribute at the Forum on a rendition of Ziggy Stardust that captured the original’s rampaging riffs if not its alien weirdness.

Wearing sunglasses and spray-on jeans, frontman Phil Campbell was a more obvious variety of rock star with a scorching vocal. With his flailing limbs, he moved like Jagger but sang like Rod Stewart in the Faces. Having spent last year in the US and Scandinavia, this was a long-awaited homecoming for the group. They seemed genuinely thrilled to be back playing new, bigger tunes during a tight, swaggering performance.

Oh Lorraine boasted a killer guitar riff that resembled a souped-up banjo and Modern Massacre was ferocious, while their harmonies had shades of Crosby, Stills & Nash. Although their vintage sound is a little mystifying the set was mercifully free of stodgy blues-rock longueurs, even when they jammed on Smouldering.

For a band made up of journeymen who previously played with Busted and Jamiroquai, The Temperance Movement have found their fire together as a live unit. During White Bear and the grinding guitars of Battle Lines, this spirited comeback was as rousing as it was retro.

O2 Forum, Kentish Town

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