Parry:Matthews turned promoter for the night and put together an ambitious line-up of 22 acts, the common theme being that they all have MySpace accounts.

On Review duties tonight were me on words and camera, with camera support from Celine. We turned up just after 7 pm and Invention was filling up nicely. Si from Parry:Matthews met us at the door and explained the format of the show - 6 bands on the main stage and 16 acoustic acts in the cellar bar, with both sets running continuously like a music festival.

From the reviewers side, that was a bit disappointing as it meant we would not see all the acts, so apologies in advance to anybody who don't get a mention, but we can only review who we saw on the night. 3D had pulled out at the last minute due to illness, so we were down to 5 acts on the main stage.

We had a bit of time before Stench Limbosa kicked off upstairs, so we went down for a drink into the cellar, which I suspect is the kitchen/cafe during the day. This had been kitted out with tables complete with flowers and snacks. It looked really nice, but once there were more than 30 people in the room it was standing room only and already starting to get hot. The acoustics aren't that special down here either. We also seemed to be directly under the main stage, which was going to cause problems later on, especially when the mosh pit got going.

Dizzi Drummer was in charge downstairs acting as combined compere and, er, drummer for the acoustic acts. If you visit Dizzi's MySpace page you'll get a video tour of her bus/studio/home - fascinating stuff.

We caught the back end of The Great Admirers set, performing 'Some Things Are Hard' with five of them squeezed onto the performing area - in retrospect this was an opportunity missed to put them on the main stage in place of 3D. Anyway, we liked them, and Dizzi was the unofficial 6th member.

Tessa Bickers was on next - looking a bit nervous, but she has a superb voice and not bad guitar work either. Tessa's album 'Pot Luck' has just been released, and we were treated to the title track, plus Love Hurts, from 'The Hangover Sessions' which had a harder edge than on the album version. Tessa's set finished with '24', a song about life passing you by.

Stench Limbosa were on the main stage by now - we knew because we could hear them from the cellar. It looked like the acoustic acts were going to have to compete with the noise from upstairs.

Back upstairs now to catch the Irish 5-piece band Stench Limbosa in full swing. I'd describe the sound as discordant off-centre rock, and thought of Flaming Lips meets early Therapy with maybe a pinch of Cranberries. The female lead singer could have done with moving about a bit more. Anyway, different enough to be worth a listen for sure.

Back downstairs for the acoustic acts and we were disappointed that we'd missed Anna Parry's set. Never mind, we just caught the end of co-Parry:Matthews band member Rob Phillips set - he was giving his guitar and voice some stick with a Nirvana cover - Smells Like Teen Spirit - really great - the room erupted when he's finished. Wish we could have caught more. Anyway we could only stay a few minutes before we had to go back upstairs for the next act on the main stage.

One of the stand-out acts of tonight for us was Tijuana. New, young (all under 18) band with sackfuls of talent who have obviously put a load of effort into their rehearsing because they came across as a slick and explosively energetic rock/rap/funk act. We were treated to a full-on performance. An audio and visual treat as bass, lead guitar and singer/MC Miguel Santana Da Silva prowled the stage. A couple of near misses between the bass guitar and Miguel's head when they really got into it. Good songs too. They could do a festival stage easy.

Seemed like more than couple of hundred in the main hall tonight - The upstairs is a proper TV studio with a good sized stage at one end and plenty of lights and a good control desk. The acoustics are pretty good too. The bar was too small for the crowd really, but on the plus side the prices were OK.

Parry:Matthews gave their usual assured performance with the ethereal vocals of Anna, and superb support from the rest of the band. Really top notch production, video backdrop etc and the music positioned slightly off the mainstream, which isn't a bad thing.

Back to the cellar, this time to catch The Little Girl Blues - an unusual duo of electric cello and guitar/vocals. Leanne did a couple of songs solo (plus dizzi of course) - Leanne has a raw quality to her voice and a beautiful emotional delivery. This was the first time I'd heard the audience go totally quiet for a set.

A rare solo outing for Phil Cooper (half of The Haiku), and Dizzi was obviously delighted to have him as a late addition to the program. Phil gave us three superb, well-delivered songs, 'Only Time Will Tell', 'You Can't Say I Haven't Tried', and finishing off 'They Don't Know What It's Like'. We'd like to catch him again.

Back upstairs yet again to catch The Girls, who added local guitar legend Jon Amor to their line up for tonight, and the amazing Clive Deamer on drums. Believe it or not The Girls actually recorded the track 'What I Did Today' in a balloon at an altitude of 6000ft. Check out their Myspace page for the details. Standout tracks for us were 'Fight Dirdy' and of course their breakthrough hit 'Zebra Jeans'.

We stuck around upstairs to catch the headline act Fortune Drive. Iconic Front Man Bobby Anderson led the five-piece through a blistering set of songs from their album 'A Modern Question', due out probably in July. Here's a band with all the signs of being right on the edge of making it big. They will be touring through the spring taking the message to all the unfortunate souls who don't live in the south west.

Thanks to Si from Parry:Matthews for putting together such a great show and Dizzi Drummer for her excellent compere activites down in the pit.

Words: Kev@BristolBands.com
Photos: Kev & Celine@BristolBands.com