Woohoo, friday night spontaneity as I decided to join Chris in journeying to Harlow. Beers on train started it off and conversation drifted between how good Sugar/Husker Du were, how mad the Butthole Surfers were, and how funny Lookout samplers were.

Arrived at the venue which is a fair walk from the station but it's worth it as the Square is a ...youth centre (yeh!). As this suggests the crowd is usually young but hey it means us oldies can get to the bar more easily.

Having heard neither of the support bands before and having been asked if we were 18 and if were 'coming in' (rather than drinking outside) we entered the venue. It's not a bad place if a little small but the merch stall was tucked up in the corner which wasn't ideal.

First band 'Heffer', three youngish lads sporting stickered guitars. Apparently they hail from as far afield as Lincoln and London so the fact that they were pretty tight is appreciated. Musically its melodic punk all the way in a kinda Ten Foot Pole, Pulley vein. Seeing as I like these two bands I thought it was pretty cool, cool enough to buy their 7 track demo. My one gripe would be the vocals sounded a little too 'american' but in all fairness british and american vocal styles are pretty blurred by now (and we shouldn't all try to sing like we're cockneys, oi oi!).

The second band 'Kid Galahad' start setting up producing amoung other things an acoustic guitar and some big effects box, Chris has since informed me that they're signed to a label owned by Oasis's management (that's what Sean said anyway --Chris). So it's a four piece right with Vocals, Guitar, Bass and Drums. The band starts and by this point I was pretty steaming, and they were ..... shit!! They sounded like a really crap metal-Blur I don't know where they're from but I wished they'd fuck back off there. They're well all spacy phaser intro's and vocal effects, not good. Being pissed I told them this in one of their quieter moments, my shout of 'Fuck off your shit bring on Horace Pinker!' actually got a small round of applause, says it all really.

Ahh 'Horace Pinker', now I saw this Chicago band at the Underworld and didn't really rate them, but in the small confines of Harlow they were gooood. Four strong twin guitar band rocking the melodic punk rock tip again, some nice vocal harmonies thrown in, they probably sound like Jawbreaker but seeing as I've never heard Jawbreaker that's a guess. The lead guitarist had a truly awful pink t-shirt on though, and it was disappointing that the dancing contingent of the crowd thinned out to just Chris and myself, and then just Chris when my girlfriend started texting me (she picks her moments).

On the whole a great night, two good bands and one pile of shit (notice something familiar), muchos beer consumption and talking of shit. Sorry to hear you got mugged on the way home Chris.

--Ben