Saturday 22/03/03 David Holmes presents... The Free Association @ The Lomax, Liverpool

The Free Association are David Holmes' pet project. Although he manages to keep himself busy as a producer, label boss, film score composer and DJ (he only scored Oceans Eleven for god's sake) he's managed to conceive this fine example of a block-rocking band. This being his vehicle that allegedly takes him from behind the "DJ booth and into the concert hall", except that funnily enough, he's still behind a DJ booth.

Although Holmes may be the initiator, catalyst and puppet master, his input into the live show is negligible. Maybe he's doing something terribly important back there, you can't really tell, but this is vocalists Petra Jean Phillipson and San Franciscan Sean Reveron's show and don't they know it. Helped no-end by the live drumming that's pounded out in an expert big beat cut and paste manner.

Petra, despite appearing in an unflattering hooped dress commandeers much of the performance time, whipping the crowd up with her smoky vocal. Meanwhile Reveron camps it up round the stage hugging the speaker stacks and throwing his dreads about. It's Reveron's rhymes that rescue this band from being just another dance act though; his throaty rasping laid-back raps are the glistening centrepiece. "I don't rhyme no mo'/I shapeshift" he croaks out on stand out track 'Don't' Rhyme No Mo', whilst flicking his hands up like a Mardi Gras queen and running his hands up and down his own body, a certified showman without a doubt.

The duelling vocals are the perfect ying and yang and are showcased exceptionally well for the bands theme tune 'Free Ass O-C-8', with Petra's uplifting vocal shoring up the stream of consciousness talk of Revron perfectly.

The Free Association are indeed a success and although Holmes and sidekick Steve Hilton (who appears as half of support act Children with his girlfriend) have produced a fantastic and brilliant studio album, it's live that this band needs to be seen to truly appreciate them.