Duke Special

After grabbing a pint of Guinness at the bar, Par/Baila took the stage. They are a pair of DJ's from England who proceeded to scratch and sniff around a couple of standard prestigidation type tracks cuilminating in a human beat box finale. Nothing to drop the linen to but more entertaining than The Amazing Pilots who followed them. I haven't seen such an awful set in a long time. The song structures were badly arranged and point-of-factly, their leading man could just not sing for his supper. It picked up a couple of tracks in when one of the band dropped his maraca's for a set of drums but there was not enough juice in the delivery to cut the mustard. If this is how they perform at every gig, I'm surprised they're not collecting dole money. Gladly, their set ended and the Duke took the stage.


I can only describe him as the Northern Ireland equivilent of Ben Folds Five which is a compliment by the way. After a rapturous enterance, the first song came on like a flock of birds being released from a cage and the packed Empire Music Hall was enthralled. Cracking song after cracking some followed each other until the Duke left to relieve his bladder and drummer, Temperence Society Chip Bailey, took centre stage to instruct us on the finer arts of playing a spatula on a cheese grater.


After returning to the stage, the Duke welcomed Slim Jim, a double bass player, and a delivered a fine little ditty.


After a few more little gems it was encore time and just when you though it was over, the Duke, Slim and Chip found their way to the centre of the crowd to perform an impromtu song before bidding us goodnight. Fantastic.