Photograph : Debbie Sheringham

Despite storm Abigail drenching the city plenty of hardy souls made the effort to get along to Leith's Franklin Cricket Club tonight, in order to witness the live powerhouse that is Oh! Gunquit on stage.

Although slightly underlit their's was as electrifying and raucous a performance as expected. The likes of 'Bad Bad Milk', 'Sinkhole' and of course 'Lights Out' being raced through at a frenetic pace gave all present barely a chance to catch their collective breath. 

In Tina Swasey the group have a singularly engaging vocalist, happy to get in amongst the crowd, break out some Northern Soul dance moves and with the control enough to successfully hula hoop whilst playing the trumpet. Diaphram of steel!

Rawer than on debut album Eat Yuppies And Dance their party sound gave the crowd exactly what they wanted with its solid, rumbling rythym section, the provocative sax playing and Simon Wild's guitar lines tying it all together behind Tina's commanding frontage. Two encores followed the main set, including a race through 'Wooly Bully' that properly set the seal on another top notch headline act at the Franklin Rock 'N' Roll Club.

Not that tonight's support act was in any way inferior. Looking far fresher than you'd expect after two months of touring Sao Paolo's The Black Needles delivered up a stomping, raw set of stripped down garage. Slower, "romantic" numbers were annonced once or twice but never quite seemed to take on the form that description implies as the Brazilian trio rattled through a dozen or so songs including a well chosen cover of the Q65's 'I Got Nightmares'.

Singer Jonas Morbach regularly finished off songs by lending a hand on the drums, whacking away at a cymbal with his guitar head, an act emblematic of the exuberance of the band's overall performance and indicative of how caught up in the live situation they manage to get. Absorbing stuff from a thoroughly personable group.

Another successful show at the Franklin (and what other bar sports its own cricket jumper?) with The Bonnevilles being the next headliners there on November 28.

Cheers to Tina, Simon & Jonas for taking the time to have a blether on the night and to the Franklin Rock 'N' Roll Club team for yet again coming up with the goods.

Recorded live from a position within the audience at Casazul, one of Barcelos, Portugal’s most important DIY spaces, in July last year this 40 minute, single track, performance from Black Bombaim, Isiah Mitchell, Rodrigo Amado and Shela is being released in a batch of 500 coloured vinyl LPs by Cardinal Fuzz and as a download.

Effectively cut short by the police taking to the stage and unplugging Mitchell’s guitar it still manages to achieve a fully rounded character. It has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Starting off with a calmly laidback groove it builds well and goes on to allow for passages highlighting the playing of each party involved on a number of occasions. It reaches particularly satisfying peaks around the 10 minute mark as the drums really start to get a pounding & the guitar work soars to great heights and again at the 25 minute point or so as the saxophone breaks through to the surface of the piece before everything finishes off building nicely and then sliding pretty gracefully to a close.

The above opinions are all based on listening to the digital version of the release. On LP it’s split over both sides of the disc and I’m unable to comment on whether that leads to a drop in the overall aural satisfaction despite the obvious beauty of the physical product. As with most physical releases you’ll be able to download it anyway once the hardcopy arrives at your door so it’s probably no big deal.

Live At Casazul is available from bandcamp.