Ah, The Streets. My mind is still torn as to whether Mike Skinner is quite the chav poet he posits himself as, or whether he�s actually a very smart character actor concocting an identity which appeals on various levels across a whole swathe of demographics. Certainly the crowd for The Streets� gig in Plymouth last night was a bizarre cross-section; the surfer dudes you always see at gigs in the Westcountry, shaven-headed Fred Perry wearing casuals (which I guess includes myself), indie kids, hip hop kids, 30-something couples who read the glowing reviews in Q or wherever, all gathered at the church of The Streets. The only time I�ve seen as diverse a crowd was for a Lee �Scratch� Perry gig a couple of years ago, but I guess in the provinces when someone finally comes and plays live (even in a venue as odd as Plymouth Pavilions � �Your First Call for Corporate Events!�) all and sundry flock to the show.

And what a show The Streets put on these days. It�s a far cry from �two turntables and a microphone�, although support acts Kano and The Mitchell Brothers warm us up nicely with the sparse approach. What are The Streets? A solo artist? A band? Live, Mike Skinner is accompanied by a full group comprising singer Leo, keyboardist Ed, bassist Morgan and a drummer whose name I forget, and the interaction between all four parties is key. Add in an extravagant lightshow, optics on the drum riser, a sofa (for a brief interlude), a video screen mixing pre-recorded footage with live shots of the stage and crowd, a �brandy-cam� interlude which saw Mr Skinner feeding the girls in the front-row with cognac, and a balcony/walkway set-up at the rear of the stage, and the result is a hell of a lot of effort setting everything up every other day in a new town. And a great gig too � the bewildered smiles plastered on Mike and Leo�s faces after Plymouth�s young female population bared its collective chest attested to the honesty of his �I�ve never done a more fun gig than this� statement.

Discussion on the drive home focussed around what it is that The Streets do in terms of genre, whether they�re UK hip hop, grime, garage or something else entirely. I think we settled on �pop music�, the logic being that there are no genre divides if you can buy your CDs in Woolworths. Certainly the show didn�t fall fully into any category � Kano brought the grime, The Mitchell Brothers some UK hip hop, and there was even an onstage mic battle between local youngsters and the champion from the last gig on the tour to get the crowd going. The Streets themselves inspire the collectivism of a rave, the pally repartee of mates down the pub and also make use of the off-the-cuff dynamics that the best rock bands thrive on in a live setting, all focused through a tightly-planned multi-media lens which whips the audience hysteria to massive levels as they see themselves reflected back from the on-stage screen and feel a part not of a crowd, but of a performance, a show. When, during �Dry Your Eyes� in the encore, Mike encourages everyone to hold aloft their illuminated mobile phones in a modernist inversion of the lighters-aloft gesture, and focuses the cameras back on the sea of Nokias and Motorolas bobbing like tiny blue and red stars in a sea of people, there�s a frisson of wonder which rolls over the entire crowd, even the too-cool-for-school buggers at the back.