Assistant Blog

In support of her lovely new EP, which itself trails a full Albini-produced album shortly to follow, the wonderful Scout Niblett showed up in Brighton to play a set at the Komedia this week. Having really enjoyed the show I went and spoke to her afterwards and complained that I always mean to see her live, and then find that the show has sold out, or I become suddenly lazy, or something happens to prevent me doing so. So while her recordings have occupied much of my time I was never able, ’til now, to see her live.

The first thing I notice is the way she plays guitar; attention is obviously heightened because for much of the set it’s the only sound you hear, intricate guitar lines echoing out around the dark space between verses, but it’s almost immediately clear that her playing is tremendous. She’s incredibly intuitous, knowing exactly when to emphasise a note and when to merely suggest it, and the moments where she rocks out are blissfully loud and tremendously satisfying. I’m constantly reminded of Kurt Cobain’s way with a melody, but Scout picks out unpredictable guitar riffs recklessly, introducing moments of crunching drums at peak moments.

New single ‘Dinosaur Egg’ is a treat – the simplest of guitar lines and Scout’s sweet vocals marking out the track as musically delightful, but the key here is the lyrics, written by David Shrigley. “Dinosaur egg / oh, dinosaur egg / when will you hatch?”, Scout asks, “I’ve got a million people coming on Friday / and they expect to see a dinosaur / not an egg”. Towards the end she adds on some lyrics I’ve not heard in previous renditions, eliciting a round of laughter from the room – I can’t remember exactly what she sang, but it was something about the fact that she’d much rather be a “ball of light” than a human. Or rather, she’d like to be “a ball of light… but still have sex”.

After a few brilliant songs on the guitar she puts down her first instrument and expels the drummer from his seat, taking over for a brilliant run through of ‘Pom Poms’, noting that “everybody needs someone to spell out their name in a little song”. Shuffling through tempos and stopping and starting, she manages to conjure something illusive and remarkable from the most basic of ingredients. Switching into ‘Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death’ she pounds the drums and screams “we’re all going to die”. By the sixteenth repetition I spot some people looking around the room rather nervously.

But despite the weird, bluesy guitar lines and screamed vocals, much of the set is profoundly pretty and Scout herself is smiling and informal, chatting between songs and occasionally forgetting lyrics. At one point she takes a breather and asks us where the term ‘sweating cobs’ comes from. The audience looks back, bemused. “Don’t you say that down South, then?”, she asks, in her broad Nottingham accent, “I say it all the time”. She lives in Portland, Oregon these days, so I wonder what they make of that phrase over there.

Finishing up a set which I never for a moment wanted to end, Scout played a bruising, bluesy take on ‘Just Do It’, which is also on the new EP, and headed out to the bar, where I grabbed a couple of moments to jabber my enthusiasm in her ear. I bought a poster which she kindly signed, although I kind of wish I’d bought a record instead.

But after forty minutes of her unpredictable, peculiar, beautiful music dancing inside my head, I wasn’t really thinking straight.

Had an absolutely amazing night tonight – saw one of the best gigs of my life in an isolated, far out of the way part of San Francisco. I arrived in the city at about three o’clock today, and made immediately for the seafront, scenting immediately the sea air and wanting to see the Pacific. But it’s not as easy as that, and San Francisco is amazingly hilly, as well as complex geographically. Almost immediately I encountered an improbable hill, and, temptingly, a tunnel running straight through it. But that didn’t seem right somehow, so in the severe California sun I climbed to the summit at an angle I’m not used to walking and looked down, in raptures, at the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen.

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. I visited the bay (although not the Pacific, because it’s half fresh water – need to head over to the other side of the city), cooed over the sea lions (of which, more later) and tried in vain to work out how the trams worked. Then I rushed over to the city library to see a reading by Chuck Palahniuk, but he turned out to be boring, so I jumped in a cab to a far-off warehouse district, hoping to catch Canadian folk-heroes Frog Eyes play a date in Northern California. I succeeded – and it was one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen.

First up were a local band – from Oakland – Port O’Brien, who played decent, sometimes interesting indie rock with a bar band approach; outgrown hair and baseball caps. Their songs were best when they touched on SF life – songs that ringed with references to fishing boots, canneries and anchors. The interplay between the bassist and the absurdly pretty banjoist (this is America, remember) drawing the attention from a slightly drab frontman who had, in fairness, a few really decent songs. Unfortunately – and I can testify this having been in a perenially third on the bill band – they were utterly upstaged by the two bands which followed.

First up were New York’s Alex Delivery, who I’ve never heard of but who quickly mesmerised me – setting up with keyboards and rave-style hoodies I expected a horrible new rave cacophony, or at best a CSS rip-off, but in fact they were utterly singular and incredibly impressive, indulging in long percussive work-outs which made me think of Too Pure mainstays like Moonshake, as well as the inevitable Can and more arcane comparisons like Terry Riley. Occasonial bursts of monstrous, eerie guitar recalled nothing more than My Bloody Valentine – and you can’t make a better reference than that. Easily the best band I’ve seen in a while…

…’Til Frog Eyes came on, that is. In the UK, you have to be a distinct kind of indie rock saddo to know who Frog Eyes mainstay Carey Mercer is, but if you do you’ll know that he – as he well knows – is well overdue a breakthrough moment.

“So listen”, he tells us, “you think if I go on hunger strike til we get a number one single we’ll finally get a hit record?”

Well, no, sadly, but I’ll tell you what – Frog Eyes are better than pretty much everyone in the charts this year and last, and tonight they put on an incredible, inspiring performance of raw agression and precision. The early signs are not good – Mercer looks like an estate agent from Chingford – but his energy is infectious and his guitar playing incendiary – add him to the very short list of indie rockers who can turn in a decent guitar solo: J Mascis, Steve Malkmus, Bob Mould, him. That’s it.

The show is relentless; barnstorming song after song; Frog Eyes recall the hyper-enegry of 70s Bowie, 90s Fugazi and the Arcade Fire. It’s impossible to take your eyes of Mercer, who unleashes electric bursts of guitar blues at a second’s notice. It helps that his back up is so good, but his playing is extraordinary – vital and deliberate.

Afterwards I can’t find Carey, so I grab a couple of pretty girls from Alex Delivery, and tell them they were ace and would be huge in England (er, think that’s true, but my instincts aren’t always right – and obviously I mean indie huge, rather than actual huge). They’re really nice, and, spotting a chance, I steal one’s tumbler of whisky, and race it down, grinning madly.

The evening belonged, though, to Frog Eyes. And San Francisco.

I saw LCD Soundsystem and Prinzhorn Dance School, who recently signed to DFA, at Birmingham’s Carling Academy last night; impressed with both but overwhelmed by neither; Prinzhorn played much the same set they played at last year’s Great Escape festival, although they mystifyingly elected not to play their strongest, set-closing song, which blew me away when I first heard it. It’s all the odder because without it the stripped down PDS aesthetic, all sudden snare and symbal crashes, awkward bass and snippets of repetitive guitar, sounds curiously limiting; occasionally moments open up where you suddenly hope for surprising diversions, but that doesn’t fit with what they’re trying to do, so although it’s a consistent and coherent set, it feels like the rigidity of the template is suppressing the quality of the idea – one song, (sorry, I don’t know any titles) which references monsters, contains the most beautifully slanted (and enchanted) guitar solo, pointed and abrupt. Another cries for a lead break that lets rip, but Prinzhorn are too controlled for that – a pity. Anyway, plenty of menacing stage presence, some hilarious lyrics, and a few marvellous songs bode well for the future.

LCD Soundystem, by contrast, seemed anything but lean for the first two – dreadful – songs of their set, but it was the first night of their first tour for a few years, and they seemed to swiftly take control and moderate their pace, eradicating the rustiness which characterised the start of their set, although the guitars frequently drowned out the bass. James Murphy is a pleasingly chubby frontman, unleashing sardonic rants and enthusiastic falsettos by turn, frequently breaking off to thwack the inevitable cowbell. Their songs lurch between Fall-like punk (‘Daft Punk is Playing at My House’ was one of the victims of early-set nerves, alas, but ‘Movement’ was one of the best songs of the night) and extensive dance workouts, where the band clearly lack the finesse and camaraderie of the (much better live) !!!, and yet still climb to impressive heights on a number of occasions. One new song is swept along by a synopated bass-line and gorgeous New Order keyboards, and ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’ is ten or twelve minutes of bliss, recalling the delirious, hedonistic rush of the Happy Mondays. By the next song, however, they’re below parr and this is the story of the set – they’re clearly out of practise, and need to sequence the songs better. There’s no excuse for not playing ‘Losing My Edge’, either. Try and catch them at one of the later dates on the tour, perhaps.

All told, a great evening – and the first time I’ve been on the guest-list for a gig in about ten years. Having a plus-one but no-one to go with, I plucked a sullen-looking teenage emo-girl from the queue and escorted her in, and then darted away when I realised this generous gesture looked alarmingly to the rest of the queue like the action of a sexual predator. Bah.

Six songs into Jarvis Cocker’s third ever solo gig (he’s played in Paris and Brighton in recent weeks, and last night played the Camden Palace Koko) I was thinking to myself, having recently witnessed Damon’s amazing comeback gigs in Exeter and down the road at the Roundhouse, “oh, nothing to get excited about here”.

A few simple facts about the first half of the set:

- some middling songs, kind of resembling the late period, Scott Walker, Nick Cave styled stuff on the last couple of Pulp albums.

- Jarvis clearly, like Damon, enjoying being back in the limelight, wagging his finger and making us all laugh between songs. He looks much better with his hair long (although Anne-So doesn’t agree).

- A tight but flat performance from his band, featuring Richard Hawley (increasingly looking like Sheffield’s best songwriter) on lead guitar. Nothing special.

And then things began to change. Not much taken with the song title ‘From Auschwitz to Ipswich’, but the song is a sudden and drastic improvement, and the song launches us into a series of songs (‘Tonite’, ‘Big Julie’, ‘Disney Time’) which are all reminiscent of Pulp at their best, much less reserved and introspective than the previous songs, and it’s no co-incidence that the band begin to get off their leash now too, Hawley demonstrating some vivid guitar playing and the band and crowd seeming galvanised by the brief cameo of Jarvis’s old bandmate Candida on guitar.

Suddenly, Jarvis’s exagerrated shape pulling and finger jabbing seems justified, as if he’s no longer performing alone but actually inhabiting the songs. When the set closes with an absolutely cracking, violent rendition if ‘Black Magic’ it suddenly seems possible that Jarvis has another number one single on his hands. The encore, the remarkable ‘Cunts are Still Running the World’, (key lyric: “it stinks, it sucks / it’s anthropologically unjust / Oh but the takings are up by a third / Cunts are still running the world”) is much better live than on record, and does a lot to overcome the unfamiliarity of many of the previous songs.

Teasing us by offering to play an old song, Jarvis finishes with a very able cover of ‘Space Oddity’ and wins doubters like me very much over. Given that it’s early days and he’s only drawing from one album, it’s safe to bet that future shows will sound bigger and better, and it’s refreshing that so many of the best songwriters of the nineties (in the last weeks I’ve written about Albarn and Evan Dando extensively too) can still summon up the old energy. For me, an unexpected surprise in the end. Good stuff.

Oh, and a quick update on another gig I saw recently – me and Anne-So went to see British Sea Power debuting a raft of new material at The Pressure Point last week; and witnessed a really tremendously satisfying set by a band that seem to delight in provoking contrasting feelings in me – I’ve seen them six or seven times now and I tend to love them one time and feel really disappointed the next. This was definitely one of the former occasions, the band sensibly dropping most of their last album – which I initially really rated, incidentally – to concentrate on the more agressive, frantic stylings of their first, and a bunch of new songs which, tellingly, hark back to their early stuff too.

That’s not to say that they’ve fallen into the trap of recycling old material, but they’ve perhaps realised that when they’re playing their hard, dark and fast stuff they sound like one of the best bands on the planet, whereas the rest of the time they sound like an average indie band. So the new stuff, much of it led by Hamilton’s endearingly thin voice, utilises pounding rhythms, speedy basslines and razor sharp guitar sounds, and is – frankly – brilliant, and bodes well for an excellent third album. If they can just eradicate their occasional propensity for duff live shows then they might just fulfill all that early promise and fascinating imagery.

I saw The Young Knives for the third time this year last night – another cracking gig, and quite amazing to see how their appeal has broadened into the intervening months. The first time I saw them – at the Ocean Rooms – they were tremendous, but the audience was small and a long way from being groomed or stylish (myself particularly, I admit). At Audio a couple of months later there was a bit more of a buzz but it was still pretty sedate. Last night, however, I realised how quickly they’ve come on (and how poor the Concorde 2 is at checking its customers’ ID) – the growd was a riot of youthful, dressy, slanty-haired teens with cloudbursts of mascara and low-slung belts. They danced arhythmically and clutched glowsticks (the DJ, noticing the mood, cued up Shitdisco and The Klaxons) before the band came on.

And then they leapt and moshed and sashayed their way through the YK set, singing along with every word. Was surprised and amused and pleased. I would never have said, before, as much as I wanted it to happen, that the Knives would really breakthrough into the mainstream. I think I might have been wrong, though.

The band, as brilliant as ever, seemed to recognise this, too – regularly sharing raised eyebrows as the crowd before them threw themselves around with naive abandon. Unfortunately, an album-heavy set clearly focused on raising the temperature meant there were no airings of ‘Guess The Baby’s Weight’, ‘Worcestershire Madman’ nor the brilliant ‘Current of The River’. But riotous run throughs of ‘Kramer Vs Kramer’, ‘She’s Attracted To’ and ‘Elaine’ more than made up for that. Best of all was a lovely, slight – and rather rare – attempt at ‘Tailors’ – during which I marvelled at the ingenuity of a young crowd so enthusiastic that when Henry sang “Tailors are the best, see them running with their brollies” a whole subsection of the mosh pit stopped swaying and mimed the opening of a dozen imaginary umbrellas. Awesome.

How do we escape the ghosts of the 16 year old us-es? There’s no way. I could read a million brilliant books and none would do what London Fields did to the teenage me. No film will recapture the magic summoned up by Quadrophenia or Withnail and I. I could obsessively follow the music scene and listen to as many remarkable new bands as possible. But nothing would halt the heart-shimmy provoked by hearing, I dunno, Pavement’s ‘Summer Babe’ or Mercury Rev’s ‘Car Wash Hair’. I’m past making huge emotional links between myself and my favourite bands. But it still hurts when Sleater-Kinney split up, when I think of Blur onstage without Graham Coxon. It’s like I kept the 16 year old me stored up, ready to pounce.

He sent me scurrying down to the record shop last week to snatch up a ticket to the Lemonheads date at the Brighton Concorde, which I went to last night. It was a birthday present from the 16 year old me. But it wasthe Lemonheads. What do the Lemonheads have to do with the 29 year old me, what do they have to do with 2006? Only the fact that my insides still lurch when I hear the opening chords to ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ or the chorus to ‘Hannah and Gabi’ and I wonder if it’s the 16 year old me kicking to get out. The Lemonheads I thought I’d forgotten, and then I saw they’d reformed. Whoomph.

My on-off love affair with The Lemonheads started in 1992, when I was actually preoccupied with cooler, artier or more fashionable bands. What did I need with Evan Dando’s short, romantic pop songs when Dinosaur Jr were creating epic, soaring noise or Pavement alternately jarring and melodic art rock? Except that I did listen to The Lemonheads, or more specifically their 29 minute long classic ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’, and for all that Nirvana or Sonic Youth were blisteringly singular, I kept – and keep – coming back to the astonishingly consistent, bright and tuneful rock songs on ‘…Ray’, songs which combined Dando’s love of the tuneful Australian rock of the Triffids, the Go-Betweens and Smudge with the punk metal sounds of hardcore and grunge.

Although things tailed off after ‘Ray, and after nearly ten years out of sight, Dando’s comeback record, ‘The Lemonheads’, created with the backing of The Descendents and – gloiously, albeit briefly – J Mascis, is the best pop record I’ve bought in 2006. And last night was one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen. A few songs in Dando noted, “this song came out in 1990. I’m an old man”. Perhaps, although judging by the ecstatic reception he was afforded at the Concorde 2 (and the fact that, old or not, while in England this week – and at pretty much any other time – he’s probably the best looking man in a radius of 500 miles) his talent, always lazy and always underappreciated, is as luminous as ever.

Dando is one of those musicians who has always been known for his sense of (wayward) fun and his willingness to connect with his audience whenever they ask. To that end, he was effortlessly charming as ever, fronting a stripped down power trio and infecting every guitar lick with enjoyment. The set, which consisted of more than 30 short, effervescent songs, was delightfully ramshackle and simple, Dando ignoring pretty much every opportunity to solo and sticking to bright, poppy riffs – although he took the opportunity, during a storming ‘Confetti’, to unleash a guitar solo that J Mascis would be proud of. It’s a typical Dando trait which some find infuriating; bothering only once or twice to break sweat, but it’s enormously endearing.

The songs, naturally, were heartbreakingly good. How perfectly, for example, does ‘Confetti’ distill Evan Dando’s slacker romantic streak?; “He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he coulda”, Dando croons. ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’ is the prettiest song of the 1990s and hasn’t aged a day. The sheer amount of memorable tunes on ‘…Ray’ (played pretty much in its entirety last night) is incredible, the ultra tuneful ‘The Turnpike Down’, ‘Alison’s Starting to Happen’ and ‘Bit Part’ all gorgeous live. More interestingly, the new songs, particularly ‘Let’s Just Laugh’ and the lovely new single ‘Become The Enemy’ fit in seamlessly. The latter is classic Lemonheads, right down to that opening lyric, “It’s my fault / That I never earned a trade / So I just scrape all day”, before dissecting the breakdown of a relationship and accepting the blame.

That’s a recurring theme for Dando. Even ‘Baby’s Home’, one of the sludgiest songs on the new record, is lovely tonight, enlivened by Dando’s massive grin and more slight, lovelorn lyrics, (“When a horse breaks its leg / then it’s best to shoot it / cause it’s quick and it eases the pain”). The set takes on new life, meanwhile, when most bands would be packing up for the night, when Dando’s bandmates leave the stage and leave him to play a delightful acoustic interlude, stripping his songs down to their folky, observational bones. He even plays a rapturously received ‘Frank Mills’, which I never expected to see. ‘The Outdoor Type’ and ‘Being Around’ are sung word for word by the audience, and are interrupted by shouts of “we love you” and “you’re brilliant”.

The return of the full band for the final two songs provokes stronger reactions still. ‘My Drug Buddy’ is surely one of the most beautiful songs ever spun out of dependence. Again, the audience bellows every line, often drowning out Dando’s deep whisper. I join in, crying “She’s coming over / we’ll go out walking / make a call on the way / She’s in the phone booth now / I’m looking in / There comes a smile on her face”. Not many of Dando’s peers – and plenty went down a similar route; smack – managed to combine their tales of withdrawal and nausea with such an observation of beauty. Where the stoned Kurt Cobain saw only pain, Dando was able to note “We have to laugh to look at each other / we have to laugh, cause we’re not alone/ As the cars fly down Kings Street, it’s enough to startle us”. Beside me I’m horrified to see a couple around my age standing with their teenage daughter, which reminds me how old I am. The daughter is wearing a Queens of The Stone Age t-shirt, and is more horrified still to see her mother singing along and shouting “I love my drug buddy”.

Finally, inevitably, is ‘Rudderless’ the Lemonheads’ classic, their ‘Freak Scene’ or ‘Teen Spirit’. The intro sparks mass hugging. When Evan cries “Waiting for something to break / left my heart out to bake” the whole venue seems to swoon as one. ‘Rudderless’ is the best indie rock song of the 1990s, I decide, experiencing a moment of euphoria.

Of course, the band are hauled back out for an encore, but it is cut short when someone informs the band that – over an hour and a half into their set – they’ve run out of time. “Sorry guys”, Dando shrugs, “there’s a curfew”. Everyone groans as the DJ puts on a record and begins to bring up the lights. “I mean, I don’t care”, Dando continues, “I’ll play through it”, and grabs his acoustic, leading us through an inevitable and lusty ‘Big Gay Heart’. The second he finishes the house lights are snapped on immediately and we start getting ushered out. “Fuck off”, Dando snarls, launching immediately into ‘Into Your Arms’. There’s a lovely moment, a moment of uncertainty when everyone wonders what will happen. The lights are dimmed again and he’s allowed, again drowned out by voices, to carry us to the end of the song.

It’s a delightful conclusion, and utterly in keeping with the spirit of one of the best, brightest, most fun and least understood rock groups of the last twenty years. Absolutely brilliant stuff, all told.

I like it so much I buy a t-shirt. Or at least, the 16 year old me does.

I think I’ve probably written enough about the Young Knives recently, but I saw ‘em live again last week and they deserve another brief mention, because it was a very different set. It goes without saying that they were terrific, but a few bullet points for things I didn’t cover the last time I raved about them….

- After the crowd-pleasing, punk rock set at the Great Escape a few weeks ago, it’s good to see the Knives offering up a more varied and balanced set tonight; it’s not until around half an hour in that we start hearing anything that’s already been released officially – yet the first bunch of songs; ‘Part Timer’, ‘Dialing Darling’ and ‘Current of the River’ all sound super; raw, aggressive and tight.
- And when they do get to the hits… ‘Rumour Mill’, ‘The Decision’, ‘Weekends and Bleakdays’ and ‘She’s Attracted To’ are all blistering tonight.
- The songs they leave out! A stunning set tonight and yet no ‘Kitchener’, ‘Coastguard’, ‘Another Hollow Line’, ‘Kramer’ or ‘Trembling of Trails’. They kept back enough for another set, practically.
- And super to hear them branching out from the super-enthusiastic, aggressive sounds of the singles, too – the best tracks tonight are arguably the beautifully titled ‘Loughborough Suicide’ and the delightful ‘Elaine’, which see them wielding pretty melodies and sweet harmonies to great effect. Any fears that the impending debut album might sound samey are fast abating.
- Wow, what a great band they are.

There, I kept that quite concise.

A few words about the support band, then. The Immediate were really impressive tonight, one of those unknown support acts that leave you gaping and grinning and musing on all that is brilliant about pop music. Four young, precociously talented and soft-spoken men from Dublin, The Immediate laid on an inordinately varied and vital set, swinging about musically and swapping instruments and evoking about a dozen great bands in the process, they reminded me most of a slinky, song-led version of !!!, all processed guitars and shape-shifting drumbeats. Then they sound like Radiohead and New Order and some lost 60s psych dudes and, well, they are a band that kind of scarily do their own thing and make it hard to find comparisons. The best I managed, watching the drummer take lead vocals for a track and climb the barriers into the crowd, crooning and pointing, was a kind of 2006 iteration of Orange Juice with four Edwyn Collinses. They were great, seek ‘em out before they’re huge.

Okay, day one of the Great Escape, Brighton’s newest and coolest music festival is now behind me, although it took retreating to bed mid-afternoon to get me in a state lively enough to consider writing up yesterday’s excitement and consider the options for the night ahead.

Quick summaries, then – first band up last night were a band I’ve been looking forward to seeing, and, happily, they were also the best band I saw yesterday, so I can feel smug. Prinzhorn Dance School, then – who have, unbelievably, not got a myspace page; imagine! – were, ooh, thrilling, seriously good. Although that’s not surprising when you consider that they’ve caused a bit of a buzz in an alarmingly short time. The sound is simple; a sturdy, primitive and relentless barrrage of kick drum and bass guitar with squalls of jagged guitar and occasional bullet sounds from the snare, combined with primal boy / girl vocals. It made me think instantly of the wonderful Huggy Bear, while the Fall inluence was equally obvious, and some the guitar solos could have come straight off Slanted and Enchanted (take a look at the design of their website if you want proof of that influence). All the songs carried a snarling menace and a stripped down focus which made them very appealing. The final song, meanwhile, worked itself up into a terrific Fall/MBV crescendo. Not sure I’ll see a much better band this weekend, truthfully.

Next up – after a trek to the Ocean Rooms – were a band that we thought were Norway’s Super Electric. Ooh, we kept saying, look how handsome and Norwegian-looking they are! And it’s funny, isn’t it, how Norweigan accents sometimes sound quite American? The music itself was cool and lots of fun. The temptation to explain them as four big kids having a tremendous amount of fun with a bunch of kids’ toys is hard to resist, although there may be more artistic reasons why they pursue a sound – propulsive, kinetic patterns of squelches and clattering rhythms – with toy keyboards rather than samples and sequencers. How much they were improvising I’m not sure, but their dynamic, hands-on electronica was cheering and involving. Just a shame that the Ocean Rooms was charging fifteen quid for four bottles of Staropramen. Oh, and guess what, they were neither Norwegian nor Super Electric. They were in fact, Toronto’s lovely Holy Fuck. Myspace page here, with a couple of cool tracks.

Next on the plan was to head up to the Pressure Point and catch the Rumble Strips, but we stuck around to watch a few songs from Buck 65 (myspace), also from Canada, before we moved on, and enjoyed his set so much that we knocked our schedule severely out of kilter. Rapping over his records and pausing only occasionally to do a little, very rudimentary, scratching, Buck was an appealing, friendly presence, telling wry jokes between tracks and insisting that we all sing along to a new song where the only word in the chorus is ‘Dang’. Far more folky and fun than his frequent puff-pieces in Wire magazine suggest, he was entertaining, and I was sorry not to see the whole thing, but we were determined to hotfoot it for the Freebutt to see The Crimea (myspace), and we just about made it, too, although we only caught the last few songs, which were well executed in a slightly serious, slightly epic English indie rock way, and I wish we’d seen more, or seen the small amount we did see more sober. By that point though we’d been going for hours and there was no sensible alternative but to head home and start recuperating for the next day’s action.

Which is why we spent twenty minutes at the 80s club at the Penthouse, revealing our secret and shared liking for the songs of Mr. Mister, and several incoherent hours back at the after-show party thing at the Ocean Rooms. Time passed. I remember walking home in the rain. That’s day one dealt with.

Plans for tonight? Les Incompetents, Howling Bells, Misty’s Big Adventure, Ladyfuzz, Battle and (yipee!) The Young Knives. Then, if my stamina can take it, either Serena Maneesh or The Gossip. If I’m not dead. That’s the plan. Tune in tomorrow to see how awry it went…

With only one night of the tour remaining, the NME Awards Tour finally rolled into Brighton last night, featuring what was (probably) a spirited and odd set from Mystery Jets (I say probably because we turned up late and missed them), a middling, occasionally impressive turn from We Are Scientists and two great sets from the impossibly confident Arctic Monkeys and the impossibly passionate Maximo Park.

Despite the fact that I’ve now lived in Brighton for the best part of ten years, on and off, I’d never actually been to the Brighton Dome before last week, improbably enough, which is either testament to my cooler-than-thou indie cred (it’s tiny, ramshackle venues or nothing for me) or a reflection on the fact that I’m never organised enough to buy tickets for the big events which sell out quickly. Last week’s visit – to see a live version of the Mighty Boosh – was hardly a piece of stately theatre, but it showed the Concert Hall in its more cerebral light – the Dome is part of the Royal Pavillion Estate and boasts a pretty impressive interior, a classic 1930′s Art Deco hall with comfortable, well positioned stalls.

Last night the venue – packed to the gills with youthful and delirious indie kids – was in rock mode; most people abandoned the seated areas in favour of cramming into the smallish pit before the stage, and soon rendered the floor gummy with spilt lager and fag butts. The Dome has been a non-smoking venue for years, so their inability to stop a bunch of 17 year olds having a cigarette bolds ill for the inforcement of next years smoking regulations. The PA was bone-shakingly loud with real depth. They even put up a couple of big screens at the sides of the stage so that we could admire We Are Scientists’ moustaches from afar. Oddly, the ‘Monkeys and the ‘Park had the screens switched off for their sets.

On the way in, we speculated on what our fellow audience members would think of us; “I’m glad that my parents didn’t insist on coming along”, was one suggestion. In the event, though we had a good ten years on half the audience, we weren’t the only ones who had crossed the unnaceptable line into adulthood, although the audience was certainly the youngest I’ve ever seen. Parents did, indeed, abound.

We Are Scientists were already underway when we arrived. Their set was decent without being anything too unusual – they seem to have put together a fashionable blend of styles, coming out as a kind of Strokes/Radio 4/Franz Ferdinand/Walkmen hybrid, with a slight mainstream rock instinct. They indulged in a bit of nerdy onstage banter between songs. “What do you guys think of the Mystery Jets”, they asked? Despite getting a slightly muted reaction, they continued their vaudeville routine as if we’d shouted the house down. “Well then we agree”.

I’m annoyed I missed the ‘Jets, but it doesn’t look like they went down a storm; for a bunch of 17 year olds, having your singer’s dad as your lead guitarist, as the Mystery Jets do, is surely the apotheosis of uncool. As for We Are Scientists, they delivered a short, loud set which was impressive but not much more. The Young Knives do this kind of thing with incomparable panache, and it’s a shame they weren’t on the bill instead.

The fact that the Arctic Monkeys – justly, as it turned out – were beneath Maximo Park in the pecking order is testament to the fickle, fast moving nature of pop. When the tour was booked they were very much the lesser band. We all know what happened next. Me and Vic speculated that this tour – such an impressive idea, incidentally – should really run all year round with a different four bands every month. As it is, it happens once a year and the Young Knives, who have already released what might turn out to be the best single of 2006, will have a year to wait ’til they get another chance to get on the bill. And the Arctic Monkeys must be content with playing second fiddle to Maximo Park, for another night, at least.

Actually, they’re probably glad to be out of the spotlight for a bit. Their set last night was, truthfully, everything it was cracked up to be in the hyperbolic press reports we’ve got so used to in the last month or two. As I’ve admitted before, I really like the record, but live they’re a great deal more impressive. The fact that they’ve got, considering their tender youth, five or six songs of such surprising quality is something we already know, but live they seem to imbue these songs (and they’re so cocky that they dispense with their two number one singles at the start of the set and don’t even bother playing ‘Mardy Bum’, which they already refer to it as ‘the hit’, apparently) with such a kinetic swagger that it’s very difficult to resist movement.

In addition, the weaker songs get dragged along in the slipstream. The whole set sounds fantastic, with all the voices singing along threatening to outstrip Alex Turner’s vocals at times. They play a new song and it sounds as good as anything else they’ve done. Then Turner teases us by offering to play their light-hearted, Kinksy cover of Girls Aloud’s super ‘Love Machine’ but deliver ‘Fake Tales of San Fransisco’ instead, a song which sounded paper thin when I heard the original demo last year (causing me to deliver my first damning assesment of the band). It sounds great tonight. They close, predictably, with ‘A Certain Romance’, and it’s bloody marvellous. I’m left with the odd feeling that Arctic Monkeys play a style of music I don’t much care for, in a cocky arrogant way which sometimes reminds me of bands I detest (they have more than a little in common, after all, with bands like Oasis) – and yet I’m embarrasingly impressed by them. I hope it isn’t me envying their youthfulness, that would be shameful.

Cocksure, calm, nonchalant. Damn them.

Ah, here are Maximo Park – as Sam pointed out, pretty much the diametric opposite of the Arctic Monkeys. Maximo Park, you see, are desperate. And they will pull every trick in the book to make you love them; flattery, gymnastics, and passion. Paul Smith is barely still for a second here, throwing himself from the drum riser in a full scissor kick at the outset and repeating the move at what seemed like regular ten second interludes. Elsewhere he jumps, turns, twists and flings himself around the stage, extending his thin, impeccably tailored legs out at right angles in a way which can only be described as Cockerian. He recalls Jarvis in more ways than one, too – it’s apparent in his urgent delivery and his lyrics too; “I sleep with my arms across my chest / and I dream of you with someone else”, he sings. When they play ‘Postcard of a Painting’, with it’s delightful unfurling guitar, I unveil my long-lost ‘Smiths dance’, last seen at an indie disco when I was 17 years old and they played ‘This Charming Man’.

And, as great as the Arctic Monkeys were, it’s plain that the right band are headlining tonight; Maximo Park, unlike the young whippersnappers, have simply honed their act to perfection, and the extra few years that they’ve put in have rendered their songs as tight and lean as you could imagine. The singles (and you suddenly realise there have been a bunch of them) sound fantastic – ‘The Coast Is Always Changing’ is prettiness personified, ‘Graffiti’ daftly sentimental (“I’ll do graffiti if you sing to me in French”), ‘Apply Some Pressure’ impossibly exciting and set closer ‘Going Missing’ inspiring a mass singalong. Adding to that canon of great pop-punk singles, the new one, ‘I Want You To Stay’ is more of the same but just as good, a little less high-octane but brimming with lovely observations, where a “mesh of tones surround your eyes” and a “camera runs just to collect”. Expanding on the theme, cranes exist “to collect the sky”. It’s damn good pop, but it’s artful where the Arctic Monkeys are instinctive.

Beyond all that, the band are just plain exciting – the keyboardist frequently gives up playing his synth in order to vault around the stage, or just to clamber all over it. Smith is a blur of energy. The crowd, which thins out after the Monkeys’ triumphant set, begins to stream back into the pit. It’s like Smith is willing them back. So the set – which also features a stellar take on my favourite Park tune, ‘Limmasol’ – ends having seemingly fixed a grin to the face of everyone present.

Which isn’t a bad thing to be going home with.