Review: Athlete

The final summer session in the maritime splendour of the Old Royal Naval College was always going to be about Athlete's homecoming.

The Deptford lads burst out of the blocks with El Salvador, and many of their crowd-pleasing hits were apposite for the occasion, from "making the most of the true British climate" on You Got The Style to "this is beautiful, got to soak it up" in Beautiful.

Their brand of accessible pop-rock retains an effervescent character, though inviting a choir of fancy-dressed seafarer family and friends on to the stage risked going overboard.

An all-inclusive acoustic singalong on paternal anthem Wires won the audience back on a night when the under-rated local boys done good enough to show why they deserve more love than loathing.

Earlier, I Am Kloot brought a melancholic Mancunian edge under the moody Sunday sky with their twisted indie lullabies.

Diminutive frontman John Bramwell immediately charmed the Peninsula picnickers as he brushed aside a "Motorhead moment" of ear-splitting feedback before the three-piece showed exactly why latest album Sky At Night has won them a Mercury Prize nomination.

The afternoon line-up, on a stage affording the artists a great view across the river to the Wharf, proved a little lightweight, with the possible exception of Sunday Girl - a sort of big-haired electropop cheerleader who produced a memorable cover of Laura Branigan's '80s hit Self Control.