The Script review – stadium rock at its most cliched

Irish trio the Script were Los Angeles-based songwriters for Britney Spears and Boyz II Men before the 2008 international smash The Man Who Can’t Be Moved gave them their own hit and triggered a commercial steamroller of a career. Four of their six albums have gone platinum, and they’ve embraced arena status with all the familiar trappings, from confetti cannons and pyro to computer graphics and extended catwalks.

Unfortunately, much of their music is similarly overstuffed with cliches, a sort of post-Keane/Coldplay pop-rock mix of pounding pianos and big and sugary, if rather vapid, choruses. The endless “whoah whoah”s feel cynically, rather than effectively, employed. Guitarist Mark Sheehan’s playing is so reminiscent of U2’s the Edge’s that he seems ready to break into one of their songs at any moment.

Similarly, there’s a whiff of the young Bono about frontman Daniel O’Donoghue, who darts between the catwalks and urges: “Leeds, Friday night, give it up!” Where the U2 singer would phone presidents from the stage in his MacPhisto devilish guise, O’Donoghue calls an audience member’s ex to deliver a “fuck you” to a poor chap called Peter. “It’s funny,” the singer claims, but it feels rather mean. Otherwise, O’Donoghue doesn’t seem a bad sort, and for all his various platitudes, a dedication to schoolteachers (“we need more people like you”) feels genuine. There’s another lovely moment when the band pop up in distant seating block 103, delivering a stripped-down mini-set as intimately as a pub gig.

Perhaps they should have stayed there. On the bigger stage, a nadir of overfamiliarity is reached with a mashup of their song Good Ol’ Days with House of Pain’s Irish-American rap ubiquity, Jump Around. Still, The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’s tale of devotional love remains sublime, the crowd provide a massed voice choir for Hall of Fame and light up the arena with phones in For the First Time. O’Donoghue leads the song from the photo pit and the crowd sing the chorus after he’s gone. It’s a lovely moment, if something of a slog to get there.

• At Bournemouth International Centre, 24 February. Then touring.