It could be argued that Little Boots's current tour represents something of an anticlimax. If Victoria Hesketh's success in 2009 had been relative to the amount of newsprint that loudly predicted she was going to be the year's biggest commercial success, they would have been forced to build an extension on the O2 Arena to accommodate the ravening hordes of fans. And yet, here she is playing the modest Concorde 2 in Brighton, 12 months after the press (the present writer included) read the runes and did its collective nut about Hesketh, with her debut album Hands a slow-burning success rather than a chart-flattening smash that causes all other artists to cower at the mention of its title. Admittedly, tonight's gig sold out weeks ago, but there's a peculiarly flat atmosphere in the crowd – noticeably older and more reserved than you might expect – as if they've arrived determined to be slightly underwhelmed.
But watching the gig and the audience's reaction, it's a little hard to see what the problem is, unless Hesketh's slightly skew-whiff vision of pop – its glam futurism underpinned by a very British DIY wonkiness – remains too complicated a sell for a world more used to deeply prosaic rock and pop. The set list is based around Hands, which means that it's almost overburdened with sparkling songs: Meddle, New in Town, Earthquake and Mathematics are all possessed of giddily euphoric tunes. There are three equally sparkling costume changes. With each one, Hesketh's shoulder pads increase exponentially in size: merely enormous at the start of the gig, by its conclusion they look like something that requires repeated applications for planning permission.
Struggling beneath their weight, Hesketh works the crowd so ferociously you do start wondering what she has to do to to get a reaction beyond polite applause. Rip a phone directory in half? It turns out she has to play the big hit, Remedy, which arrives at the end of the set and duly causes the audience to clap along. Having thrown caution to the wind, they demand an encore, during which Hesketh performs a new song called Echo alone at the piano. It sounds fantastic, more mature and developed than anything else she's played. Completely unexpectedly, the audience go bananas; perhaps it's wrong to make predictions about an artist whom you suspect has already had her fill of journalists making predictions about her, but, if nothing else, that seems to bode well for Hesketh's future.
At Picture House, Edinburgh, tomorrow. Box office: 0844 847 1740. Then touring.
