Little Man Tate, Dustin's Bar Mitzvah - ULU, London - Wednesday 25th October 2006

Four weeks to the day since the last time I saw them, at Kings College, I went to the slightly larger ULU to repeat the experience. A typical Students Union, with pretty slow bar service, sticky floors, and more than a few wacky students, with strange clothing and haircuts. Oh, and Steve Lamacq, hero of all students, in attendance as well.

Supporting Little Man Tate were Dustin's Bar Mitzvah, a trashy punk band from London. They have been playing around London for a while now, and I have seen their name a number of times on the bill at small venues. They were fantastic - sounding reminiscent of the Sex Pistols, but with some great poppy parts to some of their songs, and with excellent punk guitars. I will definitely be looking to see them again soon. A very good song in particular, Young Pretender, which has a pop at the BNP's Nick Griffin - in a very amusing way.

Little Man Tate came on to Carter USM's Sheriff Fatman (again), during which you could see people asking their mates what it was, some people telling their mates, and others just shrugging blankly. I was significantly less inebriated for this LMT gig than either of my previous ones, but they still sounded excellent from start to finish. As well as the usual songs about going out and trying to pull, they also played a few more tonight, that showed a more mature songwriting side to their game - and were also very good.

Towards the end of the set (which again had no encore - they are still at that exciting stage where they don't play them), they again finished with Down On Marie. The singer discarded his guitar, and had just the microphone, going mental on stage. A good feature of ULU is that crowd surfers are deposited on stage, and have to walk off stage to get back into the crowd. A good number of people did this during the last song - security hated it, and you sensed that the singer was loving it for that precise reason. A stage dive later, and the band left to rapturous applause after another excellent set.

One observation about this gig was the huge amount of poor gig etiquette in the crowd. Students! Lots of barging people all over the place to get past them (in a venue that wasn't even really very full), and students with stupid haircuts talking loudly at the back of the venue. Worse, students that are so used to cheap beer, that they think nothing of spilling it all over the place as they barge to the front for House Party At Boothy's. Respect the beer, please!!