Nobody could quite believe that the Magic Numbers were headlining a venue the size of the Forum in Kentish Town — least of all the band themselves. Though they formed more than two years ago, the quartet have only released one single — and even that was a limited edition. And yet there they were, playing to a shade under 2,000 people.

“You don’t know how long we’ve waited for this day,” said the lead singer, Romeo Stodart, after finally catching his breath. “Waking up this morning was like Christmas.” How the Magic Numbers arrived at this juncture is still something of a serendipitous puzzle. They may have high-profile patrons — Noel Gallagher, Nick Hornby and Elton John have all proclaimed themselves fans — but the Anglo-American quartet are as far from the Zeitgeist as it’s possible to be. Their brand of sun-kissed, countrified pop hasn’t been fashion-able since a long-forgotten afternoon back in 1973 and they look like a gang of renegade Open University professors. Yet only a fool would bet against them finishing the festival season as one of the summer’s hottest new bands.

Could this have been, then, an increasingly rare case of a new band being judged on the strength of their songs alone? They were certainly good enough to justify the attention. The lovelorn lyrics may have largely conformed to country’s staple themes, but the Magic Numbers’ greatest trick was the way in which they managed to breathe fresh life into familiar themes.

Stodart’s sugar-sweet melodies made even the most melancholic material seem spiritually uplifting. When he sang “One more drink and I’ll be fine, one more girl to take you off my mind” during the opening song The Mule, the impulse to run to the bar and buy him a large bourbon was overpowering, while the emotion he displayed during Which Way to Happy’s regretful refrain would have brought tears to a statue’s eyes.

Even better were the breathtaking backing vocals provided by both his bass- playing sister Michele and Angela Gannon. Their harmonising on the lilting lullaby Try and the standout song Wheels on Fire suggested a closeness that only blood relatives could achieve.

It was hard to tell who enjoyed this show more: the audience or the band. Five encores in, and with the venue’s curfew looming, the quartet looked as though they might have to be dragged from the stage. “You guys have made this happen for us,” gushed Stodart at the end, “you’ve made our lives”. On the contrary, this was surely just the first of many such magical nights.

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