大象传媒

It's early on a Saturday evening and the sun has been shining down on Belfast. There's a real feeling of the good old days in the air - you know, those simpler times when pop music was simple and you could get your dancing shoes on for the night and still be home before your midnight curfew. John D'Arcy and The Great Bunch of Lads are on stage playing to a small but enthusiastic crowd. As a band they're undoubtedly weary of the Weezer comparisons but behind D'Arcy's thick-rimmed glasses there a brain working overtime on big choruses, riffs and lyrical wordplay that teeters somewhere between ingenuity and total cringe. Barcelona is a storming tune to open a set with, full of the hope and optimism of music festival romance but as we hurtle through Teenage Meltdown and Get Over Yourself the drums hit like a punch in the gut and we're taken through the whole gamut of the angsty teenage relationship. While the chord sequences are at time predictable and the subject matter is predominantly about girls and food, we should remember that it's a formula that's held The Undertones in good stead for many years.

By the time The Vaccines take centre stage, The Speakeasy is crammed with hipsters and a few who remember when skinny jeans and sleazy pop music were big first time around. Without airs of graces, they launch straight into We Are Happening. It's a little faster than on record. It's louder and rawer than you'd expect. Only minutes in and the crowd is hooked.

The tone is set for the rest of the show. Despite being relative new kids on the pop block, most songs sound like they've been round long enough to gain that hit single status. There are hands in the air and a hoard of voices joining in with every chorus. Wetsuit and Blow It Up are finely crafted examples of radio friendly indie tunes with refrains that will linger in your head long after you've stumbled off in the direction of the after-show party.

Clocking in at just over forty-five minutes, it's a set leaving us all wanting more. Justin's had some medical attention on his throat lately and the Belfast show has been fortunate enough to get the go ahead and everyone is more than up for it as he reminds us it's a Saturday night, it's time to party and throw some dance shapes to If You Wanna.

Highlight of the evening is Post Break Up Sex which is louder, faster and sounding a little sleazier than ever before with a choir of voices joining in like they really mean it. Brit Pop and shoegazing indie are long gone茂驴陆 and so begins our post-break love affair with this next big thing.

Scott Edgar