At eight o’clock on a Sunday evening, Cork city centre is oddly quiet. The few passersby on Union Quay cast glances at the upstairs windows of the Lobby Bar, where Waiting Room are running through the sound check for tonight’s gig. The occasion is the launch of their debut album, Losing Patience, which they recently finished recording at Secret Garden Studio.

Waiting Room are Nigel on guitar and vocals, Dave on bass, Laois on violin and vocals, and Wayne on drums. In keeping with what is fast becoming a local tradition, they eschew use of their surnames. So too does Chloe, who, as well as being sound engineer for tonight’s gig, took charge of recording the album and contributed piano to the instrumental ‘7lb 6oz’.

Apart from Dave’s composition, the aforementioned ‘7lb 6oz’, all the tracks on Losing Patience were written by Nigel. “They’re all about personal experiences, mood swings,” he says of their subject matter. “It’s not as if I read something in the paper and then write a song about it or anything.”