The Fratellis, The View, Milburn - XFM's Big Night Out, Brixton Academy, London - Saturday 14th October 2006

XFM's Big Night Out was a mixed experience for me last time around. A night that has the potential to be fantastic, but didn't quite hit the spot. Still, with a cracking lineup of bands this time, it was definitely worth giving the whole thing another go. Seeing Milburn again for the first time in 6 months or so (fresh from the release of their debut album), and another chance to see The View, all made for an exciting prospect.

Milburn were on stage first, at around 10pm. The sound started off being absolutely awful in the main room, which could have been because it was still quite empty. They had flattened the floor to make a dancefloor, which added to the weirdness. But, about half way through Milburn's set, the sound sorted itself out, and in fact reverted to being the sound of dirty guitars, played by a band that clearly know how to get a great sound from them.

After quite a few experiences with seeing Milburn earlier in the year, followed by six months of not seeing them, their songs seemed nicely familiar during their half hour set, and when the band came off stage, I definitely wanted more. The crowd seemed to really enjoy them, they got a great reception, and were in full banter mode with the audience. They could and should have played for longer, and good to hear that they still sound energetic and good.

Next band on were The View, who I had seen a month previously, and they were good, even if they failed to completely blow down the Tunbridge Wells Forum. Tonight, they were better than merely "good". Coming straight from a slot opening up in Cardiff, just a couple of hours previously, their set was played at pace, and pretty much all of the songs sounded fantastic. Having heard a few of them before undoubtedly helped matters, but they sounded like a proper rock band that deserve to be massively successful. The last 3 songs in particular, Wasted Little DJs, Posh Boys, and Superstar Tradesman, were amazing - but there were plenty more where that came from.

And finally, The Fratellis headlined, coming onto stage at about 12:30. The audience seemed to be very excited, but I must confess to not being a huge fan of the Fratellis. Their album has done very well, and latest single Chelsea Dagger is a brilliant song. But, even though they are clearly doing all of the right things, I just don't really like them, in much the same way as I don't really like Franz Ferdinand. There were a couple of good songs in their set (one of which was good mainly because it sounded like Chelsea Dagger), but I just didn't really get why everybody was going so mad for all of their songs. I'm on the outside of this one I'm afraid - I should probably like them, but I just don't.

And so the night degenerated into an indie disco. With over 3,000 people in the venue, there were always bound to be a large number of tossers there, and as 1am became 2am, the count seemed to grow rapidly. A good night all in all, although the beer queues were an absolute joke all evening, we all still managed to get enough down us to make it a good one.