The Beat goes on

Paul Collins helped put down the 1970s powerpop template in The Nerves and The Beat ... three decades later he's at it again, and certainly not showing many signs of age (musically, anyway - there's a lot less hair and more stomach  nowadays). He's accompanied by a very able rhythm section, Spaniards Chris Bongers on drums and Juancho Lopez on bass guitar. Usually his group is rounded out by  Manolo Espinosa on lead guitar, but he had a substitute, a Wisconsonite like Bongers, whoae name sounded a bit like King Swagger, so that's what I'm going to call him.

Shocking introduction action!



We're not worthy!



Let the rocking commence!



Bongers bangs the drum!



Singalong action!



Paul rocks the Ric!



Paul looks shady.



Juancho rocks the low end!



The Beat goes on!



Assorted rocking about!



Audience participation action!



I think Ian got a little carried away.



More Paul!



I didn't get many Swagger photos. Sorry!



Guitar raising action!



Paul strikes a pose.



Bassist singalong action with Davey!



More Swagger!



Back-to-back action!



Cue the dancing girls!



Rhythm section action!



More Bongers!



The crowd goes wild!



That was lots of fun. I also believe it was the most crowd-surfing I've seen at one show all year.

• Show reminder: The Weakerthan's Greg Smith and his Bad Seeds plus Dave Tough play the Raw Sugar Cafe; On Burning Shores, This Is DeathValley, Royal Rumble, At the Hands of Death and Against All Odds perform at Cafe Dekcuf; Metz, Big Dick, and some super-secret guests destroy Babylon with volume; Ted Axe and The New Action and The Cutmen rock The Elmdale Tavern; Kalle Matson, Life In 2D and James & Blackburn are at Zaphod's; White Cowbell Oklahoma, Big John Bates and The Schomberg Fair roll into Mavericks; Steve Fai and Vapourizer go country at Irene's; The Sean Duhaime Trio bring some fusion jazz sounds to the Avant-Garde.