It’s becoming weird, reviewing Come On Gang! shows. I stumbled across them by total accident a while back, and since I really, really liked them back then, I think I might now be getting a bit snow-blind and maternal when it comes to trying to be objective and all that guff. Essentially, I’m worried I might have completely crossed the line between “Hey, here’s a band I like, and here are the reasons why” over into “I’m a total fucking slavering fanboy and they can do no wrong anymore”. That said, I’ve been in an absolutely towering fucking temper all day long, with less tolerance than normal for dumbness, inconvenience or, in particular, people not living up to expectations. So, if something can cheer me up today, there’s probably an awful lot good about it – and I’ve just got back from the Come On Gang! show at Sneaky Pete’s and I’m grinning like a bit of an idiot.

Usually, when bands say they’re having a “Christmas Party”, my blood starts to boil, evaporate, condense and then boil again. This is nothing to do with the fact that Christmas is my least favourite major religious festival and more to do with the definition of “party”. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred it’s a thinly-veiled excuse to fleece you, the paying punter, and to trot out a set lashed together with half-rehearsed old guff and make you pretend they give an arse about you. Usually.

I was at Graham Coxon’s Queen’s Hall show last Thursday and I’ve been trying to work out how to write about it ever since. Because – if I’m honest – it just wasn’t a very good show. The music was (mainly) great, but the show itself sucked everything else into a soggy bucket of limpness and humdrum.

It’s been a while since I last saw Come On Gang back at the start of the year – since then, they’ve been to SXSW, played a bundle of decent support slots, and got a new cheerful and mohican-ed bassist called Rob. Tonight’s eight-song set doesn’t go anywhere new song-wise, with new-ish ones Red Fred and Santa Maria being the only two tracks not off the setlist from last year, but they seem to be playing with bagfuls more confidence. It might have just been the soundman’s skills but it sounds like they’ve grown new muscles, and are making it look easier and easier as time goes on.