THE Place Of Dance became the place of Britpop last night, as York band ShedSeven set out to prove that, to paraphrase their recent chart single, they are indeed getting better.
Although they're still relegated to Britpop's second division, Rick Witler and his Northern lads are determined to blag their way onto the A List, and they're hoping that their second album on Polydor, A Maximum High, will scale the dizzy heights.
The POD hasn't seen much rock n roll action since Prince and Gavin Friday, and Shed Seven brought a small but attentive audience to help pay homage to the band's more obvious influences.
Rick Witter displays a marked preference for Stones style bluesology but, thankfully, he lays off on the Jagger poses and works on his Scott Walker stance instead. Little wonder, then that in his more animated moments he resembles a polo necked Julian Cope.
Guitarist Paul Banks has perfected the Johnny Marr meets Pete Townshend on the way to Spike Island style, and his playing alternates between solid 1960s riffs and graceful 1980s flourishes. He's working to pretty much the same blueprint as Steve Mason from Gene and Adam Devlin from The Bluetones.
But sometimes he manages to break out of his self imposed constraints to come up with a nice beat group groove of his own.
Shed Seven relive some of the more memorable tracks from 1994's Change Giver album, including the admonishing Speakeasy. The band also leapt on the opportunity to showcase songs from the new album, including the Smiths like Bully Boy, the measured Where Have You Been Tonight, and the current single, Going For Gold, which lacked sparkle despite its riffular resemblance to Supergrass's Going Out.
After a slight detour for a formulaie b side, the Sheddies made a late rally with the up lifting Ocean Pie before finishing with the refreshing immediacy of their Top Twenty single, Getting Better.
Getting better they may be but Shed Seven still need to shed some baggage before they can make the trip out of Britpop's b division.
