Club NME

Messy? Yes, shambolic? Most definitely, but incompetent? No. Not on tonight's performance at any rate.

Most people already seem to have formed an opinion about London six piece Les Incompetents without actually ever having heard any of their songs or seen them play live, so it is quite re-assuring to see that the minds of most of the punters in here have already been cast fully in the affirmative before even a note is struck this evening.

Why? For starters their brand of hoe-down, screwed up, ripped out and sometimes start-it-again disco-punk-funk really has to be seen to be believed. Imagine a chimp's tea party with cowbells and klaxons and you're almost there. Vocalists Billy Bell and Freddie Bang! clamber over each other to the point of corruption, whilst cajoling and inciting one another like a subjective bout of tag-wrestling for the under-fives.

The songs themselves are all pretty similar in that each of them is like a three minute musical concerto of your favourite tipple rolled into a 25 minute round. 'How It All Went Wrong' and 'Much Too Much' resemble Noel Coward, Madness and Edwyn Collins screaming to be let out of the cells after a disorderly Friday evening in Soho while their ska-bred interpretation of Thin Lizzy's 'Whiskey In The Jar' really does have to be heard to be believed!

If Les Incompetents are like the first couple of beers on a perfect night, then Larrikin Love are a concoction of the finest cocktails in the bar all lined up and ready to go.

Not content to just play the game straight by the indie rulebook (verse-chorus-verse-na-na-na-nang!), their eclecticism isn't just eye-opening, it's mind bogglingly riveting to the point of actually playing a guessing game as to what direction the song will take next. And bearing in mind we're only talking about the opening number here ('On Sussex Downs'), leaves absolutely nothing to the unbridled imagination.

Singer Edward Larrikin hops, skips and jumps like a hyperactive leprechaun between, during and after each song, while it's also worth mentioning at this early stage just what an extraordinary guitarist Micko Larkin is, flitting between garage punk, cajun rhythms, ska train chuggery and psychedelic interludes - often during the same tune - with random discretion.

And then of course there's the songs, of which Larrikin Love only play a handful tonight - but each one could (and quite possibly will) be radio-bursting singles in their own right. 'Downing Street Kindling' takes a pop at all things nationalistic and Blairite before emerging as the best song Morrissey never wrote, while 'Meet Me By The Getaway Car' is the sound of Sting's 'The Bed's Too Big Without You' being given a year zero update for disaffected teens the land over, complete with a skanked up riff that doesn't merely eat cod for breakfast but swallows the sharks too. Wholly.

By the time they get to a rip-roaring 'Calypso' finale - Edward Larrikin's ode to sewing Marilyn Monroe's ballgown and dancing with Michael Flatley among other things - an overexuberant bouncer has dampened the atmosphere somewhat by man-handling some kid off the stage and out the venue, much to the distaste of the band who briefly down tools in protest. Yet despite the tarnished ending, it would be hard for anything to take the gloss off such a spectacularly excitable evening (unless you're the punter concerned, obviously).