“They tried to send us to an early grave,
I’m not immortal, but I can be saved”

The set gained momentum with each song, as the previously released “After Dark” went down particularly well, where Matt dealt with the topic of lust prior to a one night stand in his own inimitable way. ‘Wake up’ closed a promising set from these likable Londoners who have recently toured with British Sea Power, and surely will be headlining their own tour very soon.

A warm reception was given to local band ‘The Stands’, as fellow musicians John Mullins (The Basement) and Dave McCabe (The Zutons) were in the crowd to lend support. However, the band struggled to live up to the warm welcome as after the openers ‘I Need You’ and ‘When This River Rolls Over You’, which sound like a mix between Simon & Garfunkel, The Beach Boys and The Thrills. The Stands had a stagnant sound to them and failed to raise things to another level. Although, ‘The Way She Does’ towards the end was more upbeat and had a good instrumental aspect to it.

The Melbourne band Jet started off in the same fashion as “The Stands” in their own words, with two slow songs. The opener being an acoustic number ‘Cold Hard Bitch’ which contained “The Who” like vocals and was a nice soft introduction to “Jet”. After this they took off into heavy guitar riffed and Mick Jaegger mixed with Dolfe De Datsun style vocals tracks like ‘Get What You Need’, ‘Hey Kids’ and the popular ‘Take It Or Leave it’, which went down the best.

Jet have an extra dimension than the other New Rock Revolution bands around today, with the aforementioned acoustic numbers, but whether this is enough to make 2003 their year, as NME in its’ wisdom predicts is another matter. The set ended with a blasting version of Elvis’s ‘That’s Allright Mama’ and a big cheer from the 400 or so strong crowd. The amicable antipodeans may have passed the first stage, but can they carry their thing off in bigger venues?

David Adair