The Vaccines, Oxford Circus HMV, 14 March 2011

The frequently annoying thing about HMV is that they usually choose to play their favourite songs from the newest album released on a loop on the HMV soundsystem. Luckily, before The Vaccines played their short but sweet set, they had other, even more annoying songs playing. As it got to 6pm, half of The Vaccines had been spotted in the venue but an announcement notifies us that something has happened and there will be a delay. By 6:20, the monotonous task of shuffling from one foot to another has spread throughout HMV, losing patience as the band still have not taken to the stage. At 6:30, The Vaccines finally start their set of 6 songs and the soundsystem glitches slightly at the start of Wolf Pack but it only goes from strength to strength. Justin is charasmatic and has one heck of a voice and it's not hard to understand why he's the main focus of female attention. At only 1 minute 22 seconds, The Vaccines speed through Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra) as people are looking their most enthusiastic. They finish with Norgaard which looks set to be a future hit and is only 16 seconds longer than Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra), their speciality lying in cramming the catchiest, most energetic songs into a slot of under 2 minutes. At this point, it's hard to believe that this band are only on their debut album, they posess all the traits of a guitar band who have been making music for years and they look genuinely happy to be playing and signing their debut album. There is an aura of naivety and when meeting The Vaccines, it's obvious that their new found fame has not hit them yet and they are more interested in being happy with the music they've made and not being consumed by the hype as expressed in this week's NME article. The Vaccines are paving out the future of guitar music but not everyone is won over yet.