Silver Rocket

In the intensely crimson Buffalo Bar, some bands play. They are uniformly shit until Mittens arrive. Mittens, who play the kind of pop favoured by a naked Jason Lytle slathering cream all over The Mountain Goats. This is bracing, utterly fresh and stripped-down popular music, devoid of any garish over-indulgence. Whizz-bang and that's a song. Music this effortless shouldn’t be hampered quite so much by technology, but tonight sees several instrumental kerfuffles and flashing lights dying, leading Mittens' front man to assert that "…err… something happened". That aside, Mittens show us the power of guitar, bass and drums once Brian Wilson has left the studio to go and write a quick opera.

Affecting and intriguing as they are, Mittens are no match for the might of the Finlay live machine. They are all pissed as farts (with the eternal exception of keyboardist Lorna, who, if drunk, is doing a superb job of disguising it), and gunning for the kind of show that Idlewild were capable of at their absolute peak. So that means delirious scissor kicks, guitarists lobbing tulips into the audience, a guitar solo stood on the bar and the kind of alt-rock songs that you loved when you were 15. Remember that? And now they've split up, so you won't get the chance to see it. Gutted!

The fact that Finlay never really caught on anywhere is as bewildering today as it was when they released their first record in 2003. I Dreams And Visions was childish, violent, accomplished and splattered with faux-destructive nuance like no other band, where their second record; The Fall Of Mary, released last year, was pretty much the opposite: still genius but pretty much an un-performable guitar-layering feedback-caressing wonder. Happily, they stick mostly to cuts from that first record tonight. The unconquerable Casio might of 'Theme' is particularly ball-busting this evening, splintering the crowd into non-danceable wrecks of evil smiles. Just as thrilling, but more inclined to make you move your hips, are the smashing 'Home' single and a frankly spasticated version of 'Little Dancing Solos', the augmented vocals of which cause the Buffalo Bar's sound system to write its last will and testament.

Speaking of last wills and testaments, expect Finlay's surviving relatives to be finalising theirs any time now. There were always people who jumped on Finlay for sounding a little too close to their college-rock influences, but these are people clearly without ears. Obviously they couldn’t hear the labyrinthine narratives, the nightmarish squeals of guitar that are still unlike anything else in today's alt-rock canon (yes, I've got that Ecstatic Sunshine record…) and the glistening/fetid dichotomised songwriting prowess that should have garnered more attention than it eventually received. It makes one question whether or not anyone actually listens to music any more. This is a tragic loss to live music, and we've only ourselves to blame.

Photograph by Daniel Ross