Anyway, we’re not discussing my steward altercations - on to the gig. Tut’s was pretty empty for a venue that can fit far more people than first appears, and the first band on, The Fallout Trust, played to maybe thirty people at the beginning of their set. Most people seemed to be there for the gig, though, as the downstairs ‘in-crowd’, usually in residence and tattooed, was pretty small. As Fallout’s set progressed though, the audience swelled up, to the delight of the singer, who jerked and buzzed like some sort of Mick Jagger / Julian Casablancas hybrid, and for some reason found some kind of thrill from stroking a rafter and posing like a bi-curious super hero. I didn’t catch any of their song names, but they were pretty good to listen to, if a bit samey, but with interesting compositional variations, and the nice addition of a violin. Most obvious musical comparisons would be with The Dead 60s, The Strokes, and Razorlight, accounting for their accented guitar parts which doffed more than a cap to ska.

Next up was Modey Lemon. This was a real surprise for me, as I had no clue they would be playing. I’ve seen a lot of them on MTV2 and I liked what I saw, especially ‘Crows’. Announcing that this was their fifth anniversary of playing King Tut’s, they stormed the place with an astounding set. On television, these guys look relatively restrained compared to what I saw. The voice the singer, Phil Boyd I believe, has is absolutely astounding – emotive, manic and scratchy, and easily fills the void left by Cobain’s shotgun. They hurled themselves around, headbanged, broke strings, manipulated a moog beyond the limits of what should be acceptable, screamed and boogied. They played a fantastic mess of a set that ended with a full-on, psychedelic, feedback loving, heartfucking jam with awesome drumming from that lunatic with the hair, Paul Quattrone, screaming distortion and feedback. I thoroughly enjoyed these guys, and although I know very few of their tunes, I respected their stagecraft, showmanship, effects pedals, string snapping and vigour. I’ll be checking these guys out in future, big style.

Their set was dynamic, powerful and very engaging, with a lot of eye-to-eye contact and interaction with the audience, especially from the bassist/moogist Jason Kirker (I think). At times the drums seemed to take over the sound completely, drowning out the guitars, but most of it was balanced and captivating, and all the songs were performed with an air of consummate style and ease – a very, very cool band indeed. Respect.

If I had to describe the milo set in a few words, it would be intimidating, furious, manic, and HEAVY! They hit the stage quickly and set up their stall in fine style. Gone was the trademark baseball cap, replaced with a pair of white specs, much like that guy, 3D, Biff Tannen’s mate in Back to the Future, wore. Shamelessly pushing their new album, milo battered in about Tut’s with some new tunes, relentlessly hammering the audience with hurricanes of distortion, waves of spiky rhythms, and a delivery that was both relentless and hostile.

The stage banter was brilliant: “keep cheering, we’ve got to tune up!”, “this song is…going to have to wait”, “everyone say hello to the sound man!”. Superb. They came across as really amicable guys, sitting in total contradistinction to their three guitar attack, which was daunting, but at the same time their stage presence was really intimidating: the smallish singer was surrounded by guys larger than him, especially that bass player who reminded me of Chewbacca – he was absolutely huge! Why are most bass players larger than normal?!

The gig surfed really well, and when the more well-known, if not yet classic, tunes such as ‘The Problem’ came along the crowd loved it. The stage banter continued, poking fun at their own new album, ‘Ignoto’, saying that it had been incorrectly called ‘Igloo’ in some areas, and that a b-side of the same name may appear just due to the confusion.

The highlight of the night, however, was the much-revered ‘All Roads To Fault’, which nearly tore the roof off the poor place. The mid-song riff/slow down part was milked to breaking point, and proved to be one of the most exciting parts of the night, the crowd wanting the song to speed back up, but loving the teasing nature of the build up at the same time. Awesome.

If I had to compare milo’s set to anything, it would be the end of Saving Private Ryan, where the Yanks take on the Germans in an off-the-cuff ambush and pretty much ruin them until the American planes come in to save the day. milo were consummate, unrelenting, dynamic, exciting and engaging: they threw aural missiles at the audience right left and centre, ended up victorious, and well deserved both their headline slot and the title of best band of the night.

The gig was one of the best I’ve been to in a long time, despite not being able to drink, and I will definitely be seeing these boys again. I urge you, dear reader, no matter what you may think, or may have heard about them, to go and experience them live. You won’t be disappointed.

Martin Cassidy