Nightmare of You, Jukebox The Ghost, Free Korps

[Guest Bob]

This was a decent gig. To varying degrees I enjoyed all the bands I saw.

I missed the first band but arrived mid-set during Free Korps performance. The songs I witnessed were played tightly enough although I felt that there was an intangible spark missing from their show. I think subtle changes in arrangement and further progression of the musical ideas utilised, while at the same time trimming the excess is required. Not a bad band by any stretch of the imagination but one I feel has yet to hit its stride.

Jukebox The Ghost were pretty dammed fantastic, a three piece consisting of Piano, Guitar, and Drums playing electric and eccentric pop music. Lots of stop/starts, unexpected twists and turns, dynamics and virtuoso moments which at the hands of a less accomplished group of musicians might have been annoying, but instead became a joyous musical journey from first song to last. They toured with Ben Folds last year - they would have suited that bill perfectly.

The headliners of the night, Nightmare of You, frankly did not quite live up to their travelling compatriots standards. It was enjoyable to hear fan favourites like "I Want To Be Buried in Your Backyard" and "Thumbelina" played live and both were dispatched in a perfunctory manner, if without much enthusiasm from the band themselves.

This lack of enthusiasm on stage was more than compensated for by one female member of the audience whose overly zealous screams of "I love you" between every song seemed to baffle the band themselves. The climactic moment of the performance came when she mounted a one-girl-stage-invasion only to be very politely asked to rejoin the audience. Embarrassed laughter and distractions aside, the bands new material didn't stand well alongside the new and if I could think of one word to describe their performance it would be "professional".

Still, there's nothing wrong with that. We all have to pay our phone bill somehow don't we?