The first band I saw on the night was the eloquently named Black Rooster Black Shag. Made up by an award-winning songstress Mirika, from Canada’s windy north (bass and vocals), London based songwriter and producer JJ Symon (guitar and vocals), and Dan Brown (drums) from the band Sweet Sweet Lies. The three piece created a raw mixture of genres, taking obvious influence from garage rock and post-punk to create their self-described “Rock and Roll Noir”. They were getting a great response from the crowd who were basking in Black Rooster Black Shag’s sexually charged performance. It could have just been the acoustics of the room, but I felt the vocals lacked strength. In my opinion, they could have done with having a frontman/woman to do the lyrics more justice. Though maybe on another day, it would have sounded fine.
 
Gang were the penultimate act. To sum them up, they were awesome. You could hear the darker side of Nirvana and QOTSA in their music, with the harsh sounding vocals of Black Francis from The Pixies more lucid tracks coming through. The three piece (Eric Torney, Joe Hunt, Jimi Torney) created raw fat dirty psych sound, with tracks that seemed to fall apart in front of you, but then sucked you in at the same time. As uneasy and chaotic as their music was, their musicianship was acutely cleaver making them far, far better than your typical grunge band. This brought out the best reaction of the night from an audience that found it strangely easy to surrender to what Gang had to offer. You have got to see this band.
 
On come headline act Dolomite Minor to a depleted crowd. Had everyone gone out for a cigarette at the same time or had the best already been? The young duo coming from Southampton are Joe Grimshaw on guitar and vocals, and Max Palmier on drums, taking their name from cars they own – Joe’s Triumph Dolomite and Max’s Morris Minor. They have been likened to The Black Keys, which would could be taken as an insult, as the only comparisons they share are the fact they are a two piece and Joe’s guitar tone perhaps sounds a little similar. These guys have a much more dark and edgy style to their music.
 
Playing ‘Talk Like An Aztec’ first, the latest single, they started serving their raw rock’n’roll cocktail – mixed with sweaty, tobacco stained guitar riffs and bluesy grunge fuzz. Unfortunately the duo didn’t speak much, looking dead-eyed into the audience, playing through the set list without pause. You can’t fault the performance, but I think a little crowd interaction would have helped with getting the audience more energetic. Although it didn’t seem to bother one couple as they created a two person mosh pit throughout the show.
 
With the venue a little fuller by the end, Dolomite Minor received great applause after a flawless show, although I’m not sure if they thought so, as they stormed off throwing their instruments to the ground and swearing at the audience. Maybe this was them living up to the “rock n roll’ ideology.