The XX, O2 Academy, Birmingham - review with pictures

They even shoehorned a quick dash to Primavera in Barcelona too.

But you had to travel to neither of these destinations to catch them in the heat and humidity – just head down to Birmingham’s O2 Academy for their pre-Glastonbury warm-up on Wednesday night.

We imagine that is what a trip through the jungles of the Amazon must be like. The kind of atmosphere where even just thinking active thoughts sends the sweat beads trickling down your forehead and back.

When the Londoners did emerge, the crowd were loving life. ‘We haven’t been here for ages’, said nonchalant bassist Oliver Sim at one point, and it was clear their fans had been waiting.

They kicked straight in with everyone’s favourite news/sport montage accompaniment Intro. By the time Crystalised had appeared third the amassed crowd of surprisingly mixed ages were starting to bop.

What seemed frustrating at this point was the stripped back electro sounds were being cut short. They didn’t seem to be playing full songs, and when you cut out the spaces between tracks and the quick stage exit before the encore we maybe got an hour and 15 minutes out of them.

These weren’t the cheapest tickets.

Romy Madley Croft was engaging with her guitar, sweeping nicely past Sim as the two had a meandering stage presence that slotted in perfectly with one another as they swap their vocals.

But on a personal note they hold the same frustrations with this writer as somebody like Chase & Status. You craved more breakdowns throughout, you wish Croft had gone wild with her guitar a bit more in the style of, say, Foals or LCD Soundsystem. Much of the tracks seemed to drift into one, especially live, similar vocals over the top of a different tune.

Islands and Shelter were thrown in to what was a setlist heavy on first record hits that pleased the crowd, but it is perhaps on the material from recent release I See You that DJ Jamie xx lets loose most on his decks and they lost themselves more in their music.

I Dare You, Replica and A Violent Noise all carried fuller, more vibrant sounds.

But ultimately it was an evening of cut-short frustrations. How well they can hold a Glasto crowd will depend on how into them the assembled music lovers are.