The evening started slowly. The first band Virginia Wing had equipment issues and so started late. They then appeared to have monitor issues and didn’t managed to hook me in.

The next band up was a stripped back pop-punk three girls and a drummer band, with lots of short high energy songs. It worked. Sometimes a band’s energy is enough to make it work, and this was one of those times.

Closing the night was Veronica Falls. My first opportunity to see them play their own headline show. I’d expected them to start by playing songs from their most recent album. But instead they got the show off to a strong start by concentrating on strong songs from their first album and this helped a lot. Once they moved into the more unfamiliar territory of their second album, an album which I had thought wasn’t as strong as their first, every song seemed to fit perfectly in the set and seemed much stronger than I remembered from the album. With much better sound that the 100 Club show, with familiarity of their new materials and a good structured set, I found it to be a really enjoyable show. So I’m really happy that I persevered to see them again. It was definitely worth the wait

I think I saw Veronica Falls at SXSW. SXSW provide an amazingly useful mini guide of all the bands and venues. To keep track of the bands I saw and liked, like a trainspotter, I would mark the guide so that I could catch up with them after the festival. Veronica Falls were marked as one to follow-up on. But the odd thing is that I can’t actually remember seeing them. I think I might have caught the end of their set before watching somebody else, or it might have been the effects of alcohol (I suspect a combination of the two). But I bought their album when I got back and really like it. Since then I’ve been trying to catch them, but they always seem to clash with another gig.

Frankie, on the other hand, I’ve not seen before but liked their simple back to basics album that’s in the mould of a popier Futureheads. But they don’t seem to have been touring as a support band for much of last year.

So tonight’s free gig should have been a no brainer and the evening started quite strongly with the Cheatahs, a band that seemed heavily influenced by grunge, especially Dinosaur Jr. So nothing particularly bad, but nothing new.

Then it was time from Frankie. Unfortunately, all I can say is that I was extremely disappointed. Sometimes the problem with live performances is that the deficiencies in vocalists can become all too clear. Tonight was one of those cases. Probably the mixing was out, but the lead singer just shouted his way through the entire set. There was no tone or colour that they managed to infuse the album with. It was simply shouting. Maybe I was standing in the wrong place. But I was really disappointed. I’m listening to the album as I write this and still like it. But I don’t think I’ll try and catch them again.

So on to the main event, Veronica Falls. Again, not all’s rosy. Unfortunately, the vocals were far too low in the mix. But thankfully, unlike Frankie, this didn’t distract too much. What was interesting, without strong vocals there appeared to be a much bigger Pixies influence in their music than I’d heard on album. Their sound definitely has that stripped back garage indie pop sound of the 80s. Not a bad thing in my book. So I enjoyed the performance and will definitely try and catch them again.