Second night in a row for us at Thetford Forest (following Scouting For Girls and Diana Vickers), and this night was even more pop orientated. Pop music is a bit out of our comfort zone, but having already seen and enjoyed The Saturdays last year, we were looking forward to seeing them again.

First up were The Wanted, a new boy band. Having only previously heard their upcoming debut single ‘All Time Low’ I didn’t have high hopes for The Wanted, but was actually surprised by the strength of their vocals and overall perfromance. As expected the band went down really well with the young and mainly female audience. The Wanted have much stronger songs than All Time Low, which makes it (for me anyway) an odd choice for their introduction to the world. Expect this band to be massive by the end of the year, as they have the songs to match other boy bands like JLS.

The Wanted at Thetford Forest, July 2010 – Images by Jon Luton

Last time I saw The Saturdays back in June 2009, Vanessa had injured her ankle earlier in the tour and was reduced to sitting on a stool for the whole of the set, whilst the other girls danced around the stage. This time Mollie had a skin infection (they don’t seem to have much luck), and therefore The Saturdays were down to four members.

Although the band were on a big outdoor stage, the girls had a much smaller production than last year (click here for pictures from that gig), and I think many of the audience would have loved to have seen a full on produced show (although as this is one of many one off shows, this wouldn’t have been possible). The despite he crowd being much smaller in number than the previous nights Scouting For Girls concert, it was a great show for The Saturdays to do, allowing them to perform in front of a much younger audience than the one that could have seen them on last years tour, and I’m guessing this was many kids first ever show, and the whole crowd loved them.

The Saturdays are one of the hardest working pop bands out there, this time last year they were still promoting their debut album ‘Chasing Lights’ but since then they have released second album ‘Wordshaker’ at the end of last year, and had time to record a new album ‘Headlines’ which is due to released in August. Having three albums worth of material has also benefited the girls, with them having a more varied set.

Despite there only being four of them, it was still a good performance, these girls can really sing. Stand out tracks are ‘Up’ and ‘Forever Is Over’ as well as new single ‘Missing You’.