Now this is what I call a band: I turned up quite some time before the headline act and don't know if there was a support band, but if there was, the roadies would have been hard pushed to set up all of The Beta Band’s equipment in between acts.  Two drum kits, bongos, keyboards, dance music sound modules, microphones all over the place, and an assortment of novelty percussion instruments litter the stage (along with the obligatory bass, acoustic and electric guitars).

The Beta Band are musicians through and through.  Furthermore, the bass guitarist Richard Greentree hails from Portsmouth (don't know how they met, but the other band members are all Scottish).  There is a modest light show, and some homemade video footage projected onto a screen at the back, but all that seems unnecessary as The Beta Band are such damn good fun to watch perform live.

They've recently released their second long player 'Hot Shots 2', the follow up to 1999's eponymous debut.  I've never owned any music by the group, but their songs are so distinctive and well performed live, I found myself remembering the older songs from when they last performed here in Pompey at the Wedgewood Rooms two years ago.  Every two or three songs, the band rotate around the stage, swapping instruments and generally looking as if they’re having the time of their lives onstage.

They perform new single 'Human Being'.  A female acquaintance of the bassist throws her knickers onstage.  Vocalist Steve Mason comments that they were probably thrown by Richard's mum (whose in the audience tonight) and in need of cleaning.  The mixing is clear, the words audible, the musicianship fabulous.  There's even the added bonus of a drum solo performed simultaneously on two kits.  Very prog rock - well, a little bit perhaps.  The tunes recall experimental Boo Radleys, with that Badly Drawn Boy stopping-and-starting-and-going-into-lots-of-different-passages type thing.  The only tune I know particularly well is called 'Life' (I think it was recently on a free CD with the NME), and it sounds great, just as all the others do.  Ought to stop being a philistine and buy some of their material really, shouldn't I?

All in all, good fun, and I'd go to see them again tomorrow if they were back that soon.  The comparatively dull Spiritualized should take a leaf out of this band’s stage presence!

Review: Andrew Morrison