He asked, "so, do you guys know who I am, or is this just 'the place to be' on a thursday night ?" Somebody shouted "Rouse is grouse !" And he was. Pop's silver lining with the odd dark cloud (thanks to his mid-western sensibilities, perhaps ? I don't know). I'll confess a tiny nub of disappointment that it was just a solo gig (his recent release under cold blue stars is almost as strong musically as it is lyrically), but it was worth it either way. Besides his own excellent material, he let slip on his influences by covering the Cure's Boys Don't Cry and a Forest, The Smiths' Please please please let me get what I want (which had most of the audience mouthing the words with him, as one does), and he even managed to segue into part of an old Air Supply song during one of the encores (no, really). For a couple of tracks (including Ugly Stories which is my favourite track off the current album...maybe Feeling No Pain comes next) he was joined by a cellist (somebody called Gareth ?) who he'd hooked up with over the net before coming here.

Support was the dreamy heartbeat-like slow throbbing of the Art of Fighting, who did a couple of new tracks, along with heaps of good stuff from Wires, which by lucky coincidence I'd talked Eugenie into buying last Sunday.

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