Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Colin and I stood in a long queue outside the Mandella Hall on Friday night only to find out that it was slow because they were asking ticket holders to sign up to a fanzine. "Screw that!" we thought and made our way around to the enterance where our tickets were taken, hands stamped and bar was awaiting our purchase of Guinness.

At this time, the place was still relatively empty and we leaned against a pillar and shot the breeze. Thirty minutes later the venue was packed and there were a surprising amount of girls. Girls at rock gigs come in two kinds but we'll deal with that later. Shortly after picking up our second pint, support act Dr Dog took to the stage. Physically and stylistically they were like a mid-90's indie version of Aerosmith. One had a huge beard to make any woodsman jealous and the other wore dark shades under a felt cap and manically jumped about the stage like he'd just swopped his sugar for PCP. Still, they were entertaining and there were a couple of good songs in the set.

Three pints of Guinness and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah took to the stage and dove straight into their album highlights. Now onto those girls. Type 1 go to the gigs, rock out and have a great time. They are usually standing beside you. Type 2 go to the gigs, stand about with their mobile phones chatting to each other and giggle a lot. They are usually standing in front of you. It's a that time where you only want their phone number to text them and tell them to move about 2oft to either side.

Frontman Alec Ounsworth rarely spoke to the crowd but I din't mind as long as they played what I wanted to hear and they surely did. About three-quarters through they suffered a technical glitch of Alec's guitar not working. However, Belfast rock crowds readily fill the void and the drummer noodled along to "Ole! Ole!" until the guitar was up and running. They returned to the stage with strange album opener "Clap Your Hands!" followed by a song with "Satan! Satan!" as the running chorus so whether this was a bizarre Orbital cover or sneak peek at a second album song I'm not sure but it went down well.

All in all a good gig but not a great gig. Still, there's Belle & Sebastian to look forward to tomorrow night and Broken Social Scene on Friday. Bring it on!