These are slightly awkward times for the Big Pink. Having spent the last 12 months slowly building momentum, they’ve released their debut album and although it’s been warmly received, their career isn’t catching fire in quite the way they’d hoped.

Testimony to this is the turn-out in the Academy’s bigger room. Last time they were in town, for OX4, they filled the top room to the extent that people were being turned away; just six months later and the bigger of the O2’s spaces is barely half full. Perhaps this is because they’ve already reached their peak in terms of gathering a fan base, or, most likely, it’s because the Big Pink’s material has a clear 80/20 split in it. The 80 is formed of dense, fuzzy, shoe gaze-influenced indie, with large leaves taken from the books of My Bloody Valentine, The Cocteau Twins and Sonic Youth. And the 20 is big, poppy, stomping hits. The first hour of the band’s set is entirely comprised of the fuzzy shoe gaze and only gets polite applause at best, but, in the last 15 minutes, when they do a spine-chilling cover of Beyonce’s Sweet Dreams, and then, when they bring out Dominos and Tonight, they get cheered to the rafters.

If you pass off the big hits as red herrings, then there’s most definitely an audience for the Big Pink. It’s probably just a smaller one than they want.