"Man, this place gets smaller every time I'm here." That's what I always my first remark on entering The Da Club. My second one is usually "Quick!! Grab all those chairs!!" and then the third one is regularly "Singer, go buy me a drink you rich Swords bloke" and then my fourth comment is then "Fine then, I'll buy *my own* stinkin' drink you smelly Swords knacker." My fifth sentence of wisdom would then be "Argh, let go of my throat Singer you freak, argh, for christ sake....ouch". But enough about me, how are you? Fine fine, great to hear. What was that? The review? Of course, sure why else would we be in The Da Club but to see those great merchants of melodic harmonious sway-rock Venus Envy. (Sway-rock, hmmm, I like that, not shoe-gazer, but definitely not mosh-esq material thank god) Actually speaking of loud stuff, the bass player of the Null Set (our first warm up band of the night) looked like a bit of a metal type. [Shuttup Thayl, sure you're nothing but a filthy metal freak yerself - Stripe] *Ahem* Anyway luckily enough Singer had seen the Null Set plenty of times before and he was full of Null Set related information pertaining to stuff that I've totally forgotten about by now. Anyway if I remember correctly Singer was drinking Woodies all night long, so anything he said was obviously a load of rubbish. *grin*

The Null Set were surprisingly good. Not totally blow your mindexcellent, but definitely grow-on-you-good. Like, some of their tunes seemed too eh, disjointed maybe? As if they just threw some sounds together, but the vast majority of their admittedly short set seemed pretty darn catchy. Sing-boy assures me that they're the next big thing, I'd actually been scared off from seeing them advertised on Hope Collective flyers (horrible visions of The Waltons still keep me awake at nights) but they proved to be more "progressive-indie" than horrible-punk. (Progressive, what the hell does that actually mean? You could make up a load of shit and stick "progressive" in the middle and it would make it all interesting, heheheh)

And next up who do we have but the resident Venus Envy supporters Palomine!! Wahey, I thought to myself, I remember these people. They've got the ride with the Fender Jaguar don't they? Damn right, but they've also got scarily jumpy songs with disgustingly accomplished noises emanating from their glittery fingers. (Yeah, even the blokes have glittery fingers) If Verruca Salt were a good bit younger, and had a moog, and sounded a good bit different, and were Irish, then they'd be Palomine!! [Yeah fucking great comparison there, you're fired!! - Stripe] Fired? But I work for free.....grumble. Oh, before we go on to the stars of the night, I've got to complain about Singer again who ran off for ages and left his lovely girlfriend Cazzo all on her own, which was actually a good thing because I got to mind her while he was gone. (The fool!!! Muuuhahahhahahaha

And then, in a big explosion of stars and smoke Venus Envy sailed down from the roof on some carefully concealed jungle vines to take their place on centre stage and wow us with all those songs that we know so well but which just keep getting better and better with every listen. Actually I spied with my ear some new material. Some kind of loud rocking thing actually, eh, it's all kind of hazy, but it was some kind of rawk instrumental maybe? I actually demanded the set list of Maura after the gig but she ran off screaming when I said I'd be reviewing them. Doh. What more can I say about VE? You've read all the propaganda already, they're the best guitar-type-thang in Dublin right now, and they're playing in The Da Club again on the 21st of March (a lovely juicy Saturday, well planned or what?) so go judge for yourselves. Oh and come up and say hi to us, I'm the bloke with the Orange head, and Singer will probably the bloke with the stupid looking lumberjack shirt and a fisherman's jacket tucked under his arm.