Stopstarts, LR Rockets, Kid Canaveral

(Picture: Stopstarts)

First rule of gigging: make sure your guests don’t steal the show. Kid Cananveral are in danger of doing just this. It’s amazing how even their brand new pop-punk songs embed themselves in the brain, while single ‘Smash Hits’ could easily be just that.

Not that LR Rockets need worry - the night is ostensibly the launch for their single on Greenock’s Grace Records. While the London-based boys may be far from home, their tongue-in-cheek guitar posturing - think At The Drive-in with a sprinkling of Dick Dale - soon wins over a crowd largely encountering them for the first time.

Fifers Stopstarts are the local attraction, and may carry the most descriptive band name ever. Their tunes’ titles - ‘Short Breaks’, ‘Metronome’, ‘Digital’ - describe their jerky rhythms and insistent guitars perfectly; with audience heads and feet set a-nodding and a-tapping. It might be LR Rockets’ party but it’s Stopstarts who lead off the dancing.

(Stuart McHugh)