Ballet School at The Stiff Kitten

Tonight’s support, Go Wolf are filling a much-needed gap in the Belfast market at the moment. Since Yes Cadets and Two Door Cinema Club moved on to bigger and better things they’re the only band left to fill a light, poppy support slot. Nothing too heavy, maybe some dancing and a little ’80s vibe? Go Wolf are the usual and only suspects, supporting CSS and The 1975 in the past nine months alone but do they really have the chops or is it a simple case of there being nobody else?

They’re an unlikely looking band, make no mistake. Everything about them is understated from their clothes to their stage personas, dressing down and appearing nonchalant to the point of disinterest or laziness, gestures designed to show unity like synchronised hand claps coming across a bit timid, a word that you wouldn’t ordinarily associate with an indie band. So much so that you feel like giving them a shake, but it seems that they’re going to be giving themselves a much-needed shakeup. It’s synth player and backing vocalist Anna’s last evening with the band which seems to signal a more determined effort from them, previous single Voices being re-released soon in the hope of it causing more of a splash, which it should do. What they lack in visual stimulation, they make up for with their pleasant summery sound, their singer possessing a gravelly voice beyond his years, giving the words a punch they otherwise wouldn’t have. They use their ’80s influences cleverly, Friction having a Beverly Hills Cop feel, the dark energy of a car chase coupled with euphoric cacophony of synths.

Headliners and recent Bella Union signing Ballet School are the complete antithesis of Go Wolf. All lookers and knowing it, they’ve thought everything through, even down to their entrances. Lone drummer Louis starts to play, as if carried away by music only he can hear. The audience watch bemusedly, waiting. Michel climbs aboard the stage, his guitar immediately creating a shimmering Cocteau Twins vibe – a vibe so thick it is like a solid wall – before a single vocal has been uttered. When singer Rosie bounds enthusiastically on to the stage, making a fashionably late entrance we already feel we know where this song is going but we’re unprepared for the degree of similarity with Liz Fraser. Instead of Liz’s trick of making up words and making them sound real, Rosie makes real words that sound made up, like incantations in other languages, in no language yet in all languages. A lyric sheet would spoil the effect but the mystery just adds to the excitement of wondering what she’s singing about in this voice that’s part Bjork and part herself, not always successful but one hell of an adventurous vocal attack. It’s serious music but presented with a giddy sense of fun, a time warp to the soundtrack of The Lost Boys, or the first Cure album if Robert Smith had been a girl.

It’s so in-your-face even the low-key moments are tactically sensuous instead of vulnerable, something that gets flipped on its head when the audience call for an encore. Surprised and delighted, the band try to pull together an extra song without having prepared one. After a couple of false starts the drummer leaves the stage, Rosie and Michel taking on a song they clearly haven’t tried in quite some time. Naturalistic in style, it’s a child’s tale of happy winter memories and does what nothing else tonight has succeeded in doing; bringing out Rosie’s softer side, her embarrassment at the honest lyrics charming us.