Halls Of Hecate - Frog On The Front, Portsmouth. 06/06/06.

A satanic seaside special to celebrate the 06/06/06, hosted by those nice dark souls over at Night Of Pan who for a while ran some fetish club nights here in Pompey before upping sticks for London. For this special night they are back with a gig/disco type thing that brings a few old faces out to play, though the fetish element is sadly lacking tonight!

There are three bands to enjoy tonight, the first being $10 Hookers who look like cheap little sluts and rough as hell, but in fairness, it is Dev and Matt from tonight's headliners Little London with friend Brian on bass, dressed in drag for a short and sweet set of raw rock n roll cover versions. They look and sound under rehearsed and no doubt they probably are as they probably got pissed instead. At times it descends into laughter, cheap sexual jokes and just plain old chaos. But it is fun and Matt sat up the back there with his bunches, bashing away on his drums looks surprisingly attractive dressed as a lady which can't be said of Dev whose nipples keep falling out and the deadpan Brian who is a comic genius. They try to end with a version of the Divinyls' 'I Touch Myself' though they fail to reach a climax as it all falls apart in spectacular fashion. Instead we are left with Brian treating us to a bass solo version of 'The Theme From M.A.S.H.', short and sweet, messy and chaotic just like sex with a $10 hooker.

Kolkarma have travelled down from London to make their live debut and take to the stage with youthful energy and a sack full of guitar solos and metal riffs. Their Myspace page lists bands such as SOAD, Tool, Opeth and Deftones as an influence and that's pretty much the kind of area they are working in; classic metal that is hard hitting, forever changing direction and certainly not afraid to stick in a number of screaming guitar solos. The material they play is solid and energetic but lacking in personality at the moment as is their stage manner, but they are decent musicians and I am confident that they will mould new tunes that start to sound like Kolkarma rather than a number of other bands ploughing a similar furrow.

With a weekend stint at the Isle Of Wight festival looming, tonight is an opportunity for Little London to cut loose and enjoy themselves. Veterans of NOP events, they look at home on the stage, unfazed by the rather gothic crowd; in true LL style they grab us by the balls, squeeze hard and make us all a little moist with their potent rock n roll. You should all know the score by now as I've reviewed them often enough...low slung, dirty, balls out rock n roll. Nice and easy, no fuss, straight in there, do the job and get back to the Jack Daniels. In terms of LL gigs it's a little messy, I've seen them hit harder, I've heard them clearer and I've seen Dev less drunk (& more drunk!) but they never fail to impress. As individuals they are top notch performers, Tom slapping away on his bass while Matt delivers perfect shots on the drums. Fuller, who cannot ever die apparently, whips out crunching riffs while frontman Dev just looks pretty for the ladies and does legs apart rock star poses while wearing cowboy hats and singing about JD, coke and Love Reactions. Great band to end the night on and looks like others have realised too as they destroyed the IOW festival and those nice Nokia people have asked them to play at the Reading Festival...result. Check them out if you are round that way come August.

With DJs Hell & Khem rounding off the night with lovely dark and heavy sounds we are treated to one last performance that is more in line with NOP events; a semi-clad lady covered in paint jumps up on the bar, climbs across tables cuts her clothes off with a knife and proceeds to dance around with not much on and engages in a bit of girl on girl action while being whipped and spanked. It's what we expect from a NOP event and is treated as normal behaviour as we watch, laugh and hope we don't get attacked with the sharp looking knife. A fine end to the evening & a pleasure to have the Night Of Pan people back in Portsmouth for a night of dark delights.