After several days locked away working on a never ending dissertation I was more than happy to venture out to the blackness that is Corp for what looked like, and was, a good night.

I arrived about half way through the Situationists’ set (♥♥♥). Having heard mixed reviews, a few too many of which mentioned bands like Bloc Party and The Futureheads, I was pleasantly surprised. The Situationists are a good example of my friends’ “don’t judge a band by their myspace” rule. The song with a catchy “ba ba ba ba ba ba” line, and tunes which sounded slightly sickly-sweet on a quick listen actually worked really well live and were balanced by more aggressive and well executed moments.

Next on was something completely different from Rolo Tomassi (♥♥♥♥). Deceptively young and innocent looking, I’m fairly sure most of the crowd were nowhere near prepared for what was to be unleashed on us. The tiny lead singer alternated between shyly smiling and thanking everyone from coming and screaming like she was possessed. It was mesmerizing. Mixing a hardcore thrash style with keyboards making noises like computers do in T.V. shows from the 70’s Rolo Tomassi were the most surprisingly enjoyable band I’ve heard in a while. After finishing off with a more laid back, almost Radiohead-like tune, they quickly disappeared to make way for the headliners.

Half way through a tour supporting their new album “Good Nature” Youthmovies (♥♥♥) have been through a lot to get to this point. Their last appearance in Sheffield was a depressing show on a tour quickly put together after running out of money whilst making the album. The fact that the band were happy to be on this tour with an actual album to sell was palpable, having said that it was not one of their better shows.

As the preview for this gig explained Youthmovies are incredibly hard to describe musically, as such it’s difficult to explain why tonight’s set didn’t really work as well as it might have. It may be that with touring their new songs for so long before the album was released they have already lost some of their freshness, it could also be simply the slightly odd lay out of the band on stage, the bassist appeared to be hiding off the left hand side of the stage.

However, with a decent set list comprising of more upbeat new material and older song “Ores”,which involved some well-timed hand clapping from the audience, I think the real issue was that a slight lack of energy on Youthmovies’ behalf was amplified by the intensity of Rolo Tomassi’s set. As Andrew of Youthmovies said you really don’t want to be following that on to stage.