GIG REVIEW: Kategoes, The Midland Railway, The Love You Tigers @ The Jug of Ale

The Love You Tigers, despite having a name suggestive of more than one person in the group, was in fact one person. As it happens that one person was so entirely mesmerising, with his childish enthusiasm and geeky-on-purpose garb that no-one else was necessary. And the music? Well he coped with co-ordinating his synth, intermittent guitar and vocals admirably, a modern one man band by all accounts. His songs are fun electropop, heavy on the samples and with some inspired lyrics (“I went to see the doctor to make it all stop. He said, “You’ve been dancing too much to electropop”- a warning for us all perhaps?) and hugely catchy melodies. 'Dr Robotnik’ brought about many a nostalgic sigh from the old-enough-to remember audience to boot. Nice to see such confidence on stage in one so young. For getting you in the mood for Saturday night antics, this was grrrreat!

Next up were The Midlands Railway a four piece from Manchester who seem to have played a LOT of gigs over the last year according to their website. They seem to have already played twice in Brum this year already, good going considering most Birmingham bands haven’t even managed that! They brought an interesting mix of stage props – both feather boas and football scarves adorning the mic stands. The music started off well, obviously all the gigging has meant a tight well polished set. The emphasis here is geek-rock and while I enjoyed the first few songs, by late set I was feeling slightly unexcited at the formulaic nature of the songs. I couldn’t help but feel there was supposed to be some sort of joke here but I didn’t quite get it. Maybe it just wasn’t very funny.

KateGoes took their places and picked up their instruments dressed as a cat, a playing card, a caterpillar, a dormouse and a mad hatter. This was “KateGoes down the Rabbithole.” The theme for this outing was Alice in Wonderland and they treated us, not only to the usual themed costumes, stage props and theme-appropriate song, there was also a visual backdrop displaying video clips of Alices of all descriptions. Impressively professional and a joyful stimulation to all senses, it felt like proper art. Art in the Jug! Imagine that! They skipped and charmed their way through favourites such as the achingly fragile and beautiful triple harmonised “Heartbeat” and the poptastic “Boom Shadilak” to a heaving and hungry audience who refused to leave till they were treated to an encore. Most certainly one of Brum’s best kept secrets.