大象传媒

There's a moment when a band you've watched grow and mature over the years takes a leap, and soars. Of course it's hard to identify that exact moment, but you can feel the difference, and it was apparent with In Case Of Fire at this gig. They've always been professional, and have a well-earned reputation for being ridiculously tight as a live outfit, and have spent the best part of a dozen years slogging their guts out to get to this stage, but they're no longer a "local" band. It's an audience made up of fans of ICOF, rather than the local music heads, and it's always a strange experience to see this transition.

Of course, in comparison to their old friends headlining, Mojo Fury are still a "local band". They shouldn't be, because they're great, but they are - for now. They quietly arrive on-stage in a pleasantly full chattering audience, who are pretty quickly silenced by this display. It's the musicality of searching experimentalists like Radiohead and Blur refracted back through the lens of grunge and filtered for excellence. They manage to shoehorn multiple ideas into each track, 'Let's Try To Make This Work (One More Time)' and 'Everything, Everything' examples of this post-grunge mastery. Their performance, front-man Mike in particular, recalls the quote from Tony Wilson about being on-stage "not because they want to be, but because they have to be". Go see this band. Get the EP. And hassle record labels to release the album.

The arrival of ICOF on-stage seems to snap some of the audience out of their stupor, possibly caused by Mojo Fury (later thanked as "our favourite band in the world"), and it's now when it becomes apparent that this is an ICOF crowd ready to lap up the lads' polished, practiced, professional baroque rock. 'The Cleansing' in particular is a soaring diving beast inhabiting the space between Muse and the Foo Fighters, giving licence for them to prove they're capable of bigger places than this. 'Align The Planets' is an ultra-tight assault of pounding drums and soaring vocals that shows why they're at the point of developing a fan-base for their often ambitious and technical sound. A minor trip into the crowd cannot halt their professional attitude, as they enjoy the relative luxury of a home gig, nor indeed can the good natured minor stage invasions halt them either. Ending on the double whammy of 'Second Revelation' and 'Plan A', they're still at it, following up the music with a work ethic that would put many to shame, meeting and chatting to fans, a lesson to many bands that talent without application is useless. ICOF are definitely not useless.

William Johnston