Robert Cooke

There are two Biffy Clyros. The first Biffy was adored by fans of Hell Is For Heroes and Hundred Reasons for their complicated, aggressive and emotive underground alt-rock. But that’s not the Biffy we see tonight, playing to 13,000 people off the back of a number one album. This is Biffy 2.0, and if you’re a new fan, this will be your gig of the year. If you’re an old fan, though, you’re going to have to accept that Biffy are no longer the band you fell in love with.

Around the time of their breakthrough album ‘Cadenza’, Dutch Uncles were throwing the phrase “math soul” about whenever they were asked to describe their sound. But it’s only now, as they tour their blissfully smart third record ‘Out Of Touch In The Wild’, that we really get what they meant. Because what they meant, evidently, was five Steve Reich-obsessed Marple oddballs doing a cover of Grace Jones‘ ‘Slave To The Rhythm’ as the brilliantly bizarre climax to their invigorating live show. Strange as it sounds, it’s the only sensible way you can close a show that’s thrust shards of artrock wonk into the most sophisticated leftfield pop you’ll hear this side of Field Music.

Countless great bands have graced the stage of the Brudenell Social Club – the working men’s club that’s become the best live music venue in Northern England – but METZ aren’t one of them. That’s because METZ play down on the goddamn floor, in amongst the people. It’s as if they think the raw, raucous proto-punk racket they make isn’t in-your-face enough, so they’re going to play it inches from your eyeballs to make sure you get the message.

It barely seems necessary to comment on what a remarkable year Peace have had. Since forming barely 12 months ago, they’ve not just found fans and a taste of fame. They’ve signed to a major record label and turned the music industry’s gaze towards the West Midlands in a way that’s not been done since Ozzy Osbourne finished with his woman.

“It’s kind of psychobilly,” is not something you’d ever have expected to hear Yannis Philippakis say about a Foals song. It’s now been more than five years since the music press (we’re pre-blogosphere at this point) went nuts for ‘Hummer’ – the song which, along with ‘Mathletics’, turned Foals into cult heroes overnight. Within months they were posing for magazine covers, and it wasn’t long until they were massive enough to become a byword for hipster guitar music.

Doldrums mastermind Airick Woodhead has lost his trousers. He misplaced them in Berlin, he says, and so is wearing a pair he’s loaned from fellow Canadian and acclaimed tourmate Corin Roddick of Purity Ring. It’s nice when friends help each other out, and it’ll have been nice for Woodhead to watch this year as Purity Ringand his Vancouver-based buddy Grimes have risen from the underground to become all-conquering transatlantic electronic idols. Now though, as those two acts near the end of their tour cycles and a Doldrums album is prepared for the new year, it seems the time has come for Woodhead to step out of the sidelines. Purity Ring aren’t just lending him their trousers; they’re passing him the torch of Canadian electronic music to carry with him into 2013.

If you aren’t familiar with Stealing Sheep, imagine if the Brewis brothers from Field Music had three estranged nieces. Much like those Mackem mavericks, wonky time signatures run in this trio’s bloodstream. But, instead of spending their childhood exploring the eccentricities of popular culture, you instead picture them growing up in a cultish commune somewhere in the English countryside, relying on outsiders to sneak them in Neil Young, Captain Beefheart and PJ Harvey records.

“Welcome to 2003/4,” says The Futureheads’ guitarist Ross Millard as his band finish playing ‘Le Garage’ – the first song from their career-defining debut. If there’s an air of nostalgia in the room, it’s because tonight these heroes of the Sunderland music scene are playing ‘The Futureheads’ in its entirety. The official reason for this trip down memory lane is to celebrate the tenth birthday of The Cluny which, in a single decade, has become one of the North-East’s most important music venues. But The Futureheads don’t need an excuse to resurrect their first record, because unlike many of 2004’s other indie debuts, theirs can still be considered a peerless 36 minutes of modern British guitar music. You don’t hear anyone saying that about Razorlight.

Johnny Foreigner are one of the great underdogs of indie. They tour and tour and tour and yet they only just scrape a living as musicians. They never seem to get any particularly bad press, but they don’t seem to sell many records either. Their website is full of pleas to their fans, asking them to buy their stuff on eBay so they can pay for their American tours. And now they have to stand by and watch as their hometown of Birmingham is re-christened B-Town by major label-backed young upstarts Peace and Swim Deep. It’s not really fair, is it?

You know when you go see a band and you leave thinking “well, that was fun,” because the guitarist played well and they did all your favourites and maybe you had a little bit of a dance and a sing-along? Well you’re wrong. That’s not really fun. Not like going to see Dan Deacon is fun, because going to see Dan Deacon is more fun than you will ever have when you’re not at a Dan Deacon gig.