I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a sensible gig in Tommy’s Bar. I got thinking about this and whenever I go there I’m confronted by lunatic bands. This is great. Obviously. I’m writing this while being aware that Mr Vivers may post a review too but I’m cheating because I know that right now he’s watching Emmy The Great, mwoohahaha.

First up tonight are Gindrinker. Crazily I appear to be with 3 people that have never seen the band before, I didn’t think there was anyone that hadn’t seen Gindrinker before. Having booked them 3 times myself I’m slightly biased so I’ll go on other people’s reactions. After a very brief first song, my friend turns to me and says “I can see why they’re supporting Brakes”. After song number two ends and the crowd applaud he says “clapping just seems like such an inappropriate response to that”. Song three prompts, “these guys should collaborate with Half Man Half Biscuit”. I would suggest that all 3 of these comments have been voiced before. In short, Gindrinker are genius, a small northerner ranting wittily over a tall bearded guy playing all sorts of disturbingly catchy guitar riffs. The only small problem about seeing them for the first time is that you don’t catch all the lyrics, it always helps to know the songs beforehand so that you can properly piss yourself laughing at lines such as ‘the speedboat’s going nowhere’. The set ends with Graf sat atop the bar whacking his guitar on the ceiling. This review of the set ends without me mentioning The Fall. Oh tits.

I’d never seen Brakes before and I’d only heard two or three songs but I knew that two of them were in Electric Soft Parade and one was in British Sea Power. These two bands I’d seen and heard a lot of. Brakes are a different beast though, firstly, Eamon strides onstage in a gold shiny space suit resembling the bastard offspring of John Rostron (Google ‘runs everything in Cardiff’) and John Robb (Google ‘every TJs Christmas party ever’). He’s carrying a pineapple. They then proceed to sound a bit like Clinic, The Coral and The Buzzcocks within about 4 songs while being better than all of them. They veer between breakneck buzzsaw shouting punk and jaunty acoustic singalongs with wild abandon. They play Dick Cheney twice, it’s only about 6 seconds long, and repeat the trick with Comma, Comma, Comma, Full Stop. They also imitate the call of the Yellowhammer and tell stories about dead badgers in canals. They are one of the most entertaining bands I’ve seen in fucking ages and have now been added to my fantasy All Tomorrow’s Parties line up. Their new album is out soon and I’m sure they’ll be playing this way again in the near future. Don’t miss ’em.