IMRO Showcase

Six hot bands, a full house, a fine new venue and attitude by the yard. What more could a poor boy want? Well, a little originality might help, but that apart this was a mighty gig with Wexford’s finest all on top form.

Abluermoon covered all the bases, from their Hootie-ish ‘It All Came Out Tonight’ to the U2 of Bad-era in ‘Soft Sand Drive’ before upping the funk quotient for ‘Right Now’ and ‘Reflection’.

Godzero brought their free-form approach to trash rock with more hair-shaking than a dandruff commercial. Their fifteen-minute ‘The Atrocity’ took no prisoners and felt like a compilation of the greatest rock riffs in the world... ever.

Jade are a feisty female quartet who all play and sing, but are more Chicks than Corrs, more Bangles than Britney. They have a fine guitarist in Sheila O’Sullivan and a robust approach to vocal harmonies. Sulk brought us another helping of thunderous raucous’n’roll driven by a cracklingly good drummer. They ooze confidence and brashness but would benefit from shedding their influences and forging their own path.

Beeker come on like REM meeting Nirvana and getting a score draw. They start out on top with ‘Daydream’, and ‘What Goes Around’ has a touch of Marley in the melody. But after the Lennonish ‘Save Me’ they coasted a little.

Skinflint are a tight mainstream rock outfit who are comfortable with what they do, but offer little that’s new.

I don’t know which, if any, of these bands will be picked for the IMRO Showcase final at Vicar St., but if I were a betting man, my half-shekel would be on Jade.