At the expense of my new friends, this summer's almost over...

A few hours ago my summer of radness ended.

This is a massive shame.

A few hours ago I caught my last show of the summer, as I have a few days now until a two week family holiday, after which I shove some clothes into a bag and head to a new life on the south coast. Obviously I'm scared, but I'm also fairly confident that rad things will happen and all will be happy.

So, my last show of the summer was a great blow-out to my gig spree and I saw a lot more people than I thought I would; bumping into Norwich friends, Peterborough friends, and other friends I've made within the scene.

First up were Smudge, replacing The Season Finale. There was nothing wrong with them, other than being - as I put it in a text to a mate who was en route to the venue - "distinctly average". They definitely weren't bad, but nothing special. Emo-tinged pop-punk, that sort of thing. Speaking of which...

This City were generic emo-tinged pop-punk, but fairly shite to be blunt. A) Please stop over-using disco beats. B) Why oh why would Epitaph sign them?

Next up were the always-on-top-form Failsafe and tonight was no exception. A tight set of post-hardcore influenced punk and rock. My only complaint was the fact that they only played one track - Unity in Progress - off the first album, the album which seems to have more pop hooks than their subsequent release.

Tonight's headliners, Set Your Goals, are a band I've seen before and love. Still, I'd never say they were tight or technically great. Tonight though... They seem to have tightened up. A lot. They weren't 100% perfect but - from a technical stand-point - this was the best I've seen them. Coupled with the fact that the new songs sound awesome live, SYG were on top-top-top form tonight. They played a good mix of songs from the new album as well as older favourites, even digging up a couple from the Reset EP.

They're back in December with the superlative worthy Broadway Calls in support so, y'know, go to a date and be overwhelmed by the rad.