Cork’s Frank & Walters - named after two vagrants from a nearby town, lest you forget - were bouncing around the TOTP studios with an exuberant enthusiasm for life, playing ‘Fashion Crisis Hits New York’, when grunge was at its zenith. Paul Lineman, sporting a superb bowl cut, his shaggy-haired brother Neil, plus drummer Ashley Keating, played with a certain gaiety that could make you smile to order. After a brief flirtation with fame they disappeared from view but have kept producing albums ever since - four in total to date. Now, eight years later, they’re doing the same thing (without the haircuts, sadly) as nu-metal is at its peak. So when Paul gives an uncharacteristically understated introduction to tonight’s gig, stating, “We’re going to be playing songs from new and old albums”, as if he had a ton weight on each shoulder, you wonder if life for the Franks is still so breezy. Often Paul’s whole demeanour indicates that all is not right in their camp.

Still, it doesn’t detract from an otherwise superlative musical display. A good deal of the set is lifted from new album, ‘Glass’, where they leave their guitar roots behind in favour of a synthesizer. Highlights here include ‘New York’, with keyboard player Sarah De Courcy adding a dreaminess to everything she touches, while ‘Forgiveness’ harks back more to older material with its chirpy “Ba ba ba” chorus. The mood switches from optimism (‘Time We Said Goodnight’) to bewilderment (‘I Hope That I Would Always Be In Love With You’) while old top 20 hit ‘After All’ shows a straightforward but still grandiose pop nous.

Paul shrugs off assorted technical hitches with “You may have noticed our mistakes but we hope you enjoyed yourselves - or at least pretended to”. Perhaps things really have finally got on top of them. The glint in Paul’s eye as they sign off with `Six Becomes Seven’ suggests he still loves doing this and they’ll carry on regardless. Even he must know, though, that they’ll never now hit the big time.

A music hack once asked The Frank & Walters, “Why don’t you change your name, it might give you more commercial success?”. Their reply was, “Why don’t you change yours?”. I think that just about says it all.

Gary Davidson