Live Review: Zoobombs The Tote

Once again the Tote have put together a bill worth getting down early to catch. Batpiss are a band on the rise. They've always had this real early punk kind of feel to them but their playing has tightened considerably in the last 12-or-so months and they fuckin' kill this set. Singer/guitarist Paul Piss has a deceptively strong voice (deceptive because he does his best to bury the prettiness of it in vocal distortion) and their second-last number The Great Equaliser without doubt takes the song of the night title. They write great tunes, their playing gets better and better, they must have a growing regiment of fans, so answer me this Batpiss: how about a fucking album?

Participants at this year's Boogie Festival will understand Baptism Of Uzi have got to be the most underrated band in town. They slot into the space left open by the recently-exited Sand Pebbles with mind-altering psychedelic jams. They don't look much – all sloppy with untucked shirts, holey shoes and geeky-lookin' guitars (the bass looks like something developed beyond the Iron Curtain circa 1962) – but they fuckin' floor their audiences every time. This is no different. The edges of their 'songs' meld into a sonic porridge and it's impossible not to be drawn into the bowl. Ditto the last sentence of the previous paragraph.

It's a bloody difficult slot to fill and Mesa Cosa miss the mark. They brought tonight's headliners out from Japan, so they have every right to play main support, but there's only so far their party jams can take them when following up music of the quality we've just witnessed and their songs just aren't up to a Friday-night packed-Tote audience yet. Their energy is infectious, sure, and there are flashes of something special (early singles 666 and Shoplifter shine), but they rely too strongly on their vibe when they could be focusing more on their writing.

Zoobombs suffer no such hurdles. Their ten albums to date span garage through several shades of psychedelia into folk, blues and the avant-garde and the stage show follows a similar progression (did I just use a 'p' word?). For this reason the performance appeals, in parts, to fans of wildly different music but lacks any genuine direction outside of tracking the sonic pathways of the group. Their earlier stuff, Highway A Go Go especially, gets the crowd fizzing but the set lags severely through the mid section and the band seem tired. There are sparks towards the death, but the journey is a little arduous for a casual listener. Based on this performance you could say that Zoobombs occupy that rare space where a band's records far surpass the quality of their live performance; if only because when you listen in your loungeroom you can skip the boring bits. This is a night that belongs to the future (see paragraphs one and two).