Quality of Life?
The Living Things draw a fairly small crowd by the weekend's standards so far at the Myspace / Gibson stage and they are visibly displeased by this. Their music is like a hybrid of the Rolling Stones and MC5; it's not exactly original but it has to be said that they do it very well.
Perhaps disheartened by the size of the crowd or maybe they're just naturally moody but either way it takes them a few songs to really get going today. There's nothing wrong with the Living Things it's just that the crowd here have been spoilt with the quality of bands so far and as such the Living Things' brand of rock and roll doesn't really excite. The song structures are fairly standard verse, chorus, bridge affairs and in front of a knowledgeable crowd it seems it's not enough to impress.
Whilst they do win the award for the biggest hat of the weekend it doesn't seem that they've won too many friends as the audience reaction is muted. Throughout the set the band are fairly static and it's not until the arrival of some stilt walkers in ostrich costumes that they become more animated. To their credit they are musically tight and the sound is good but if they're really going to make it then they need to add an extra special ingredient to make them stand out, particularly at a festival like Download where the competition is of the highest calibre.
They do alright with the crowd but not all are impressed and when the singer (who visibly seems to be pissed off) launches a bottle of water into the crowd it gets thrown back. Draw your own conclusion.