Blame downloading. That’s your first thought when you walk into this gig. Hip hop collective Roll Deep have had two number one singles, so when you breeze into the O2 Academy and are directed to the venue’s smaller room rather than the 1,400 capacity black box, it’s already a surprise. But you get up there and it’s not even sold out. It seems Roll Deep can’t even scrape together a crowd of more than 300. Granted it’s Thursday and it’s freezing, but still, you’d think with two chart-toppers under their belts, the London hip hop entourage would be able to fill bigger rooms than this.

But the second they hit the stage, it becomes all too clear why tickets haven’t flown out the door, as their live show lacks any spark or charisma. Sure the lights flash and the group’s beat maestro DJ Carnage gets his cues right, but nothing actually feels live. Members of nine-piece come and go constantly and though they holler at the crowd and attempt to gee them up, whether they do or not is academic to the show.

They skip through their tracks, each of which is a shiny example of poppy hip hop. It’s neither imaginative nor inventive, which is a surprise, given their early incarnations featured the likes of Dizzee Rascal and Wiley, who both strive to knock out interesting twists on commercial hip hop. It’s a brief set, only 40 minutes in all, and the crowd only really react during Good Times and the closing Green Light (that’s right, the number ones). And, despite being slick and controlled on record, pumping out records that go from nowhere to stuck in your head within 30 seconds, they’re stupidly double tracked live and seem they’d much rather be back in the studio. Which is probably where they’re better off.