Later With Sickofantic Queens Hall, Narberth July 18th, 2003

SPARKLING in a sprinkling of stardust the non-stop party balanced diverse, flawless top-quality music with Sickofantic's fearless and questing attitude to the challenge of staging nine bands on four stages at the Queens Hall.

Sickofantic wheeled out the oldest, greyist haired member of their team to play compere, as he cracked the whip and, together with his team of technical wizards, sent the night spinning, seamlessly segueing rock, into pop, into funk, into folk, into skiffle, and back to rock again. And so it went on for three glorious hours.

Coolly in command, and led by Robbo's silver vocals, the boys from Bristol's, The Avenue, gave us short, melodic and bittersweet love gone wrong songs from their acoustic set. If you want to catch them again, they will be back at the hall in late August.

The effervescence of dizzy pop-rockers Clarity, led by crystal voiced Di, gave us a taste of Milford music. f.n.u.k. spluttered into life and, as their name suggests, they laid down the lazy grooves of funk with pure finger-snapping coolness.

Guest for the evening was ex-Gorkys' John Lawrence and his band, who stepped out of the shadows of stage four, with warmth, skill and tunes that played out sinuously. They offered up highbrow musical brainfood, and showed us why John has been at the top of Wales' musical tree for so long.

Mapepemusic, fronted by the rich, sonorous voice of Jo Barlow, enveloped us in expansive melodies underlying the spiritualised calm of Jo's often oblique Iyrics. Noisecandy (from Newport Gwent) were jawdroppingly impressive. Their harmonic retro-pop gave us driving guitars and sun-drenched melodies, such as their soon to be released debut single Seventeen - a gorgeous pop song. The capacity crowd knew that they were watching a class act on its way to the top. Every one loved the fantastic Preseli Pete and the Bluestone Boys, as they nailed down the skiffle and bluegrass section fairly and squarely and gave us the most incongruous moment of the night - fans moshing to the sound of a tea chest bass.

Sceptic John continued the party mood with strong and striking new material, and the gold award for the lead singerism of the night must surely go to birthday boy Ben, as he majestically surfed the tumultuous and adoring crowd.

But it was the heavy riffing, high living Rockit Science, who raised the temperature on stage one. With a flash of piercings, in a shimmer of sweat and foxy looking net, and led by bad boy rock star in waiting, James, they played their celebratory songs of the joys of excess, as though their lives depended on it. No angst, no paranoia, just high-energy rock and the crowd roared with approval. The energy, enthusiasm and professionalism of the bands and the Sickofantic crew never faltered for a second.

This is definitely a contender for gig of the year and was altogether a truly sensational rock starry night.