Monday 19/02/07 Kid Carpet, Delta Fiasco, The At-Ems @ The Barfly, Liverpool

The Barfly has an aroma of mouldy student nights of cheap booze. Ah the memories. The small but enthusiastic crowd delighted in seeing The At-ems, a variable foetus of a band grow in confidence during their first major gig outside their hometown. They produced a scarily good cover of the Ghostbusters theme you just couldn’t help but like them and wish them well with all their enthusiasm and raw talent.

The stage was then graced by three young men with fashionable haircuts. The lead singer was rake thin and the drummer looked like the rum sort who’d be able to undo a bra with one finger. The Delta Fiasco are a good looking bunch who look set to do very well in this current 1980’s tinged electronica  like a pensive Blondie - Debbie Does Interpol if you will. They were musically very tight and you couldn’t fault their skills, but when Nathan Walczak sang the line ‘I don’t think you thought this through’ another trip to the bar beckoned. If you like emo-tinged electronica with lots of cymbals and soul searching then Delta Fiasco are the band for you. If you like your gigs to be full of personality and banter then look no further than Kid Carpet.

Mr Ed Patrick, Kid Carpet, strolled onto the stage looking unkempt with a fag in his hand. His tools of the trade surrounded by various cables from the previous sets. Despite being alone he filled the stage with an energy and intensity of a man losing himself in his work. With dance moves that you just know he practices at home, Carpet’s brand of DIY carefree humorous anger exploded onto the stage. Suddenly you could actually hear the crowd.  But moments like the simplistically fragile ‘Your Love’ showed that he is much more than a one trick pony.  He has the knack of actually sounding better live than recorded. That's a rarity. And as he worked his way through ‘Green And Pleasant Land’ et al and threw in a sort of punk haiku about Boob Jobs the time just went far too quickly. It was like watching your soulful and mischievous younger brother get pissed for the first time. Hugely entertaining and strangely captivating for all the wrong reasons.