Be Your Own Pet

Sometimes less is actually more, so when DiS is forewarned on arrival by Be Your Own Pet's tour manager that singer Jemina Pearl is "feeling ill", and that basically she "may play for five minutes, may play for fifty, who knows? Just wait and see?", we're partly hoping for a three-song set followed by an angry strop off stage culminating in beer bottles and plastic pint pots aplenty doubling up as missiles from an unruly crowd demanding their money back.

The fact that none of the above happens means that all we get instead is one of the most underwhelming, blandest half hours of the year so far.

Things don't get off to a great start when word reaches the surprisingly undersold venue that tour support band Damn Shames mysteriously haven't turned up on what is only the second night of the tour. With the rumour mill in overdrive, not least because of Pearl's alleged diva-like behaviour in the past, one can only hope that it has something to do with the adverse weather conditions rather than any band spat.

When Be Your Own Pet do finally slouch on stage, looking more disinterested than an ADD sufferer at Silverstone, it actually takes a good minute or so of the opening 'Spill' before DiS realises the band themselves and not their road crew (more of whom later) are onstage, such is the lacklustre posture of their entrance. At times there are moments where the band do exalt a youthful exuberance you'd expect from a group still pretty much in its infant stage, despite the hype that seems to have followed their every move from day one.

'Black Hole' is Ramones-meets-the Runaways punk pop at its most potent, while 'Becky', introduced tonight as "the skate date song", shows a more melodic side to BYOP's armoury than we'd previously come to expect.

Sadly, moments like these are few and far between, and for the most their set is reminiscent of the closing credits of Freaky Friday and more memorable for guitarist Jonas Stein breaking a string every other song and appealing for someone to change it for him, assistance eventually arriving on more than one occasion via a stage hand known only as Nigel, his third arrival actually prompting bigger cheers than any of the band's songs this evening.

Of course, no Be Your Own Pet show would be complete without Pearl's customary mid-song spew, and even though we had to wait ten songs until the outro of 'What's The Damage', one couldn't help feeling even that was a little contrived in order to save the show from falling completely flat on its face, the singer apologising - or should that be boasting? - afterwards that "We no longer play puke shows (???) but something about Sheffield made me want to be sick". Charming.

Despite the fact new album Get Awkward has received several lukewarm reviews (such as this), DiS had come tonight hoping that some of the initial spark of their live shows that got people interested in the first place remained intact. Sadly, we were mistaken. Disappointing.