Back in the tracksuit

I went to a gig last night, it was a How Does It Feel Presents night at Jamm with four acts on the bill. It seems like ages since I went out, but Songkick has it that this dry spell wasn't quite as long as the six month dry spell I went through in 2003/04.

Everything was running a little late, despite Ian HDIF's best efforts publicising the set times, I blame bands being crap and slow at soundchecking. Back in the days when I managed bands I always tried to get the bands to stay on top of soundchecks and not waste time. But sometime you get support acts that spend hours just fannying around on stage, and no one tells them to hurry up and fuck off.

The first act on were The Give It Ups, I thought I'd seen them once or twice before, but again the cold hard force of reality reminds me that I've seen them loads of times

Over on my gig reviewy site I say this about them

They start with a new song, a shouty little number called "Why won't you go out with me". The ghost of The Supernaturals would be spinning in its grave, if it wasn't busy haunting The Hussys. I think I'm trying to say the song sounds like 'Smile'.

I like the way the drummer and the bass player swap round between songs, they're like both new band members or something, right?

Also, the band rock out just a little more than I remember from last time, and occasionally invoke the spirit of a Weezer b-side, there's a little of the slacker hip about them.

The next act were Mascot Fight, the name rings a bell, but I've never seen them before. I think I just read about them on Anorak.

They didn't impress me much.

I also like the way the keyboard jockey looks comfortable on stage during the songs where he doesn't play. Its usually difficult to pull that off.

Its been so long since I was at a gig, that I've lost all sense of reference points. With that in mind, this mob are 15% tighter than the last band, but 5% less fun.

The third act were The 18 Carat Love Affair. On Facebook their fan group thing has hundreds of members, which conflicts a wee bit with their page on song kick which has only one person having seen them play live. I mention this because via a Facebook update the gig review site's getting a bit of traffic today.

My favourite song of their set is the one where Nobby the guitarist plays a bicycle pump, the atmospheric side of it tramples over any novelty value.

Final act of the evening were Veronica Falls. I can't say I'd ever heard of them at all, it was just when the flyer appeared in my Facebook intray, I recognised Wee Patrick. He was a friend years and years ago, we'd chat online. In the dark days of 2002, it would just be me, him and Toffee Crisp in the Bowlie Chatroom. At some point he moved to Glasgow with the ambition of joined Belle and Sebastian. We'd see each other at parties and stuff, but he was quickly moving in higher circles than I, and working in cooler places.

Anyhoo, he's the drummer in Veronica Falls now. The internet has it that they sound like The Crystal Stilts, I couldn't comment, I've never seen The Crystal Stilts.

My take is that they're the follow up to somethink Patrick was talking about at the final My Legendary Girlfriend gig at the 13th Note in 2005. After the bands had finished, and everyone was drunk, I wandered upstairs trying to find Adam Smith and avoiding The Owsley Sunshine, they scared me.

The drummer and bass player from MLG were chatting with Patrick, I asked what they were going to do next, now their lead singer was moving to Liverpool and had split the band. Patrick said they were forming a Tallulah Gosh covers band. It sounded like a great idea at the time.

But in the spanning years, I thought the idea had been lost with The Sexy Kids and that Franz Ferdinand side project they were involved with. Now the dream is back a little bit, and everyone's raving.

Also, now if ever I'm asked the question "Where were you when Michael Jackson died?" I know where and when, I was at Jamm in Brixton, watching Veronica Falls.

So I've written reviews and pimped them on Twitter, I've uploaded photies to Flickr and Songkick, and here too, and I'm wondering should I be watermarking or sticking a web address on the photies, some kind of stamp to show from where they came.

Maybe not.