Brakes are one of those bands that that if you haven’t already heard of them by now then, well where have you been all summer?? More importantly what have you been listening to?? That’s why tonight the Concorde 2 is buzzing as everyone’s come to check out the local Indie heroes or ‘super-group’ as some prefer to call them. Almost everyone in Brighton knows about the legendary Concorde 2. Situated right on the seafront, it’s a nice medium sized venue that holds around 350 people. The old Victorian style arches and tiled floor add to the individual charm of the place as well as the fetching purple decor and pictures on the walls of past bands and musical icons who have graced the stage such as Joe Strummer and John Peel. I won’t mention the White Stripes though. Unfortunately there’s only a scattering of people here yet (or others are propping up the bar) as the young five piece band Seal Club Clubbing Club arrive on stage and thrash through their half hour set of strange off kilter songs. It's difficult to try and describe their sound as it's all a bit odd but at times they come across as early era Flaming Lips with their use of keyboards and synths and songs that tend to veer off at unexpected angles at a moments notice. They have a new EP out next month that on the evidence of their live show should make for an interesting listen. Between bands Tom White of Brakes takes to the decks to spin some of his favourite tunes and stays there to check out the next artist. Next up is Brighton local boy Chris T-T, the bearded singer songwriter with a reputation for his weird and wonderful songs. Quirky doesn’t do them justice. He’s joined on stage tonight by multi instrumentalist Tim Victor of the Broken Family Band on banjo, second guitar and harmonica which adds a nice backing to Chris’ acoustic songs. He’s a great lyricist with songs that go from political rants about fox hunting, to Tony Robinson’s Time Team and even about Eminem being gay. A perfect example is a line from ‘Preaching To The Converted’, “Nobody's got any good red songs anymore, and Billy Bragg's gone fishing in his four by four”. He’s nicely popular with the local crowd and doesn’t fail to get people laughing and smiling, which is always a good thing. Overall a brilliant set from a very talented songwriter. By now the bar area is quickly clearing and people are getting their beers in anticipation of Brakes. The Brakes debut album ‘Give Blood’ was a somewhat suprising underground success this summer, and after easily selling out their previous Brighton show at the Komedia earlier in the year, they’re back here in the bigger surroundings of the Concorde 2. So, briefly for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past three months or so, Brakes are made up of that chap Eamon Hamilton from British Sea Power, the White brothers Tom and Alex of Electric Soft Parade and Marc Beatty of The Tenderfoot. Got all that? Good good. The band walks on stage and is given a huge reception as they launch straight into set opener ‘You’ll Always Have A Place To Stay’. It seems a strange choice of song to start with but it goes down well all the same. Then things get into more familiar rocking Brakes territory with two songs as Eamon says about “watching the band The Tenderfoot play at the Freebutt”. Cue the brilliantly insane ‘Hi How Are You’ and ‘Heard About Your Band’. Guitarist Tom is in fine form as usual, dancing about stage and joking about with bassist Marc as well as adding his killer guitar riffs to the bands songs. Despite this he does have a tendency to break into the guitar intro to ‘The Doyle’ by Actress Hands between songs, but that’s understandable as I’m sure we’d all do the same if we could play it. Eamon also once again proves to be a great frontman. Who would have thought upon seeing him that he could come out with such a powerful and distinctive singing voice? Or even that the keyboard player from British Sea Power could write such good and entertaining songs. Impressive stuff all right. The band are later joined by two members of the lovely Pipettes (minus Rose) to duet with Eamon on their cover of the My Bloody Valentine song ‘Sometimes Always’, as well as Phil Sumner of Actress Hands who plays cornet on ‘You're So Pretty’ and the ten second punk shout along ‘Cheney’. The great ‘All Night Disco Party’ gets the best reception from the crowd with its catchy singalong chorus of “it’s a super non stop uber rocking disco party” as mass dancing breaks out. The new single ‘Ring A Ding Ding’ gets a run through as well as the country tinged ‘NY Pie’. Before the band goes off for a cigarette they play the crazy ‘Comma Comma Comma Full Stop’ twice through due it being only 6 seconds long. Eamon returns solo for the start of the encore and plays the acoustic number ‘Fell In Love With A Girl’, which is a tale of falling in love with a girl who’s only 67 inches tall. Odd but funny all the same. The band then rejoins him for the classic ‘Jackson’ but without the female vocals as on the album version. Final song of the night is the b-side ‘Tabitha’, before the band leave the stage to cheers from the local crowd. “Cheers Brighton, it’s been lush,” adds Eamon. They may only have enough material to fill a half hour set but in that time they manage to make you laugh and smile, and it makes you realise that that’s actually what music’s all about – enjoying yourself. It's hard to give an accurate description of the Brakes sound as each song has its own unique style, although it's probably best summed up by that man Eamon once again “I thought it was called country punk”. Live music hasn’t sounded as natural and fresh as Brakes in a long time and there’s no doubt that it’s all the better for it. As Tom White would say himself “uber fresh-mode!”