If a line-up could be said to hang the tang of neo-retro about it, this was it. By neo-retro I mean that all of the bands’ own fresh ideas and character are injected into something stylistically obvious and consequently avoid becoming mere pastiches of the past.

Take impressive local four-piece Half Rabbits for example: both Chris Rand and Mike Weatherburn are top-notch guitarists while Mike too has more than a haunting hint of Jim Morrison about his voice. So the enchanting whole is a dazzling amalgam of Kula Shaker’s ‘Hey Dude’ and The Doors. It’s as if we’ve chanced upon them supporting, say, The Cream at the Wardour Street Marquee in the late 60s, all of which makes for a thoroughly cool set.

Likewise 100MGs who would have been the band playing at the after-show party, a roistering three-piece whose edict is plainly Party and Rock, much as you’d imagine Free jamming ‘Route 66’. Their best song tonight, ‘I Wanna Be A Wannabe’, just shouts “Loosen yagirdle and gedondown!” So I do.

Jackson’s Corner, from Reading, are the biggest surprise, brilliantly pulling of the trick of apparently worshipping at the altars of Weller, Ocean Colour Scene and Oasis, yet performing as if those artists had copied everything from them. They’ve brought with them a posse of parka-wearing fans, they’ve got the most stereotypically moddish haircuts imaginable and they cheese out a couple of songs on a Lesley Hammond, like Coldplay on scooters. It’s mostly down to singer Paul Blewett’s Weller-esque verve and striking intensity. He even covers Bill Withers’ ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ in such a neat way that at first I barely recognised it, but all this time I’m all for nipping home and dusting off my snorkel-fishtail from the back of the wardrobe.

If they can survive the inevitable hostility to their image, especially from the music press, then Jackson’s Corner might yet lead the next mod revival.

Paul Carrera