Arguably, Mike Skinner has seen his day. His performance at Billboard on Wednesday night was intimate and musically satisfactory, but it begged the question as to whether or not The Streets now exists solely in the shadow of its former glory, namely the hype surrounding the laddish 2004 single, Fit But You Know It. The almost embarrassing turnout on Skinner’s second night in Melbourne and the fluorescent sports-bar television screens both contributed to a feeling of strange unease. Pez and Phrase tried desperately to warm the very empty and disinterested room with their breezy, Australian-accented rhymes, but even their fantastic flow and The Festival Song (which charted at number 7 on the Triple J Hottest 100) failed to get anyone moving.

Opening with the title track from his new album, Everything Is Borrowed, Skinner – officially the people’s MC – appeared wearing a t-shirt bearing the both the Chanel logo and the word CASUAL in bold. This didn’t forebode well; for a man with a bunch of great old songs, and a couple of not so great new ones, Skinner has become a caricature of himself, acting generally arrogant and patronising the audience with faces and gestures. Telling the room, – œthere is less of you, so there is more of me to go around!’ his posturing smacked of smug, schoolboy chauvinism. He obviously refused to take his responsibility as a performer seriously. Similarly, The Streets’ songs always cashed in on the fact they were streetwise, fiercely contemporary and straight off the cuff. While the energetic band ripped out a great version of Don’t Mug Yourself, there was no hiding the fact that Skinner’s work sounds a little worn and rehearsed here in 2009.

Skinner’s backing vocalist for the evening, Kevin Mark Trail, was the absolute star of the show. His presence was both fundamental and underrated. During Let’s Push Things Forward, one of the tracks he originally recorded on, he was the ground, the groove, the smooth emotion to Skinner’s heavy stumbling flow, singing out to the audience, smiling and feeling with his hand to his heart. Conversely, Skinner mostly had his back to us and his head down, only raising himself up to scream over and over, slowly as if we were stupid, – œCan you see me?!’ while standing in clear view. So, if Skinner is the heart (or more specifically, the body) of The Streets, on Wednesday night, Trail was the soul. It’s Trail who I could see and hear, and not Skinner, who was too busy making eyes at the front-row punters and asking girls to flash their tits (one sadly obliging) to actually make a connection with his audience. The only time that the audience responded to Skinner was when he talked to us, revealing that he can no longer communicate through his music. While Skinner milked it in, we were left starving for attention.

The epic, trancey Blinded By The Lights signalled a turn around in the set – finally, after – œgoing low’ with Skinner and crouching on the ground, people were dancing, yelling and visibly enjoying his presence. This track was undoubtedly a highlight, with Skinner up on a speaker, painfully enunciating the classic words, – œthis nights a tragedy, I keep thinking I saw her’, finally giving way to some real emotion about losing yourself in a drug-fuelled haze. The encore included Dry Your Eyes, which showed off the great rapport between Skinner and Trail, new single Heaven For The Weather, and a dark, dirty and bassy version of Fit But You Know It (during which a fight broke out up front). After genuinely confessing his gratitude for the small turn out and revealing that he loves Australia, won’t be back in awhile, and couldn’t afford to tour the album to the USA, it became poignantly obvious that Skinner is a man caught between the character he has created for The Streets, and the person he truly is. While the songs about having a laugh aren’t so relevant any more, it’s the ones about losing and feeling the pain of reality that reflect best the band’s situation today. Skinner stage dove at the end of the set, the crowd supporting his surf back to the stage – hopefully he can continue to show his fans the same respect that they have shown him for so long.

CHECK THE THE STREETS AND ALL THE FIT PUNTERS HERE