Events like this have a habit of producing mixed results, and tonight is no exception. Singer-songwriter Kiernan McMullen gets us off to a solid start, with his feather-lite Buckley-flavoured doodles, territory well-trodden by contemporary acoustic-merchants, sometimes to greater effect, but (to give the lad his due) often with considerably less style. The human-beatbox rhythms on a couple of tracks were impressive, but he may have departed with more goodwill had he spared us the Dave Matthews Band cover.
Some artists, however, don’t earn any goodwill in the first place. Cue The Chaos Emerald, a band who are under the mistaken impression that there's a market for Reef B-sides and the cheesy bits that clogged up Primal Scream's Give Out But Don't Give Up.
Any hopes for the evening’s salvation appear dashed when four (very) muscle-bound, American body-builder types arrive onstage, presumably to deliver a slick set of polished-but-formulaic nu-metal. Alas, Suddyn (for it is they!) sound rather different to how they look – think a more raucous Keane (and one that appears to have delivered more than three or four good songs), or perhaps a Muse that prefers ‘Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy’ to ‘The Prophet’s Song’.
It’s remarkably simple stuff: sugar-sweet piano-driven melodies, played with energy and sung with panache. A set long enough to cram in a decent selection of songs, but short enough to close things when the group’s repertoire begins to appear limited. Some words of advice though: stop working out, eat less and allow your hair to become more unkempt – indie-pop songs of this calibre may need a scrawnier, more outsider-friendly image to glean the success they deserve.
A pretty damn fine conclusion to the evening, though. This was a gig that, in a manner not dissimilar to a German international football team, hit its stride at precisely the right time.