Gosh… Cats In Paris. Where oh where do I begin? Having checked ‘em out on the inter-web, then listened to their impressive debut album, Courtcase 2000, I was suitably wowed by the Manchester four-piece.

But with a sound that mixed all the button-pushing lunacy of Late Of The Pier with the sheer eccentricity of Bearsuit, I was understandably wondering how on earth this was going to sound live.

Well, the answer is that it sounds (to quote Alex Ferguson on the unveiling of Dion Dublin’s legendary tackle) “magnificent… quite magnificent”. Lead singer, Michael J. Watson (the J is presumably for jiggery-pokery… technical jiggery-pokery) seems to have more weird noises stored in his keyboard than that annoying man from Police Academy had in his vocal chords. And the bizarre vocal performance of fellow singer Sarah Beard only adds to the absurd joy that is this band.

The highlight was predictably the mighty single ‘Foxes’ (when Watson unsheathes his impressive fiddle), but the entire show was – and again I quote – “magnificent… just magnificent”!