Look­ing up at the stage, stand­ing at the edge of what appears to be a con­vulsing pile of teen­agers, you cant help but feel that there’s only so much fun in the world and Reel Big Fish are hav­ing all of it…

First on stage, it didn’t take Sonic Boom Six long to effort­lessly stir the crowd into a frenzy, and by the time they had fin­ished their set, the crowd was an ocean of breath­lessly red faces still try­ing to keep up With Laila and Matt’s dynamic vocals and coolly ener­getic stage presence.

Next up were Big D and the Kids Table, who proved they can really enter­tain; not just dur­ing their songs but with the hil­ari­ous explan­a­tions that pre­ceded them. The instantly like­able lead singer David McWane writhed his way around the stage like a man who has had eels down put his trousers and is just start­ing to like it, and the addi­tional soul-style back­ing sing­ers showed that cer­tain bands can still do some­thing different.

As the lights went down for the entrance of Reel Big Fish, I was joined by an acquaint­ance I’d met a couple of times before at the same venue and who just happened to be work­ing there that night. “I hope I recog­nise some of the songs” he grinned, “I don’t listen to them much!” My incred­u­lous reply was muted by the epic Super­man theme that intro­duced the arrival of our main act for the even­ing. Reel Big Fish wasted no time. They seized the already sweat­ing and heav­ily breath­ing audi­ence by the col­lar and as they tore into “Sell out” the sea of heads shook like a beach towel. Half way through the song I turned to my friend; “Do you recog­nise this one th-“

Gone.

By this point he was halfway across the room and dan­cing like an escaped lun­atic. What bet­ter way to describe the effect that Reel Big Fish and their sheer intens­ity has on people? You don’t just go for the music, you go for the show. It’s clear that this is a band who really know what makes an enter­tain­ing live per­form­ance, and the audi­ence soaked up every minute of it, from impromptu Metal­lica cov­ers to com­par­ing tat­toos with SB6’s Laila. As the show came to a close and the first few chords of “Beer” swept through the room, even the bar staff couldn’t keep still. A genu­inely fun and enter­tain­ing night all round.