The Editors @ Carling Academy

When it comes to Editors, and particularly front man Tom Smith, there's always been a sense of their having stepped on the sacred. The reason, quite simply, is that Joy Division's tragic legacy is, in great part, their lifeblood. Tonight, as Smith ghosts through the throes of Curtis's on-stage possession, at times spilling into parody, the easily irked purist must be aghast; the neutral onlooker slightly bemused. Pop politics aside however, Editors are simply this: an act whose anthemic romanticism cuts deep, if a little too direct, to the heart, inspiring a frenetic, unrelenting response from tonight's crowd. From curtain-closer Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors' bleak poetry, back through an evening which takes in Munich, Bullets and An End has a Start, the set plays out like their greatest, great hits, and it's that consistent quality which should surely outshine the far casting shadow of their influences.