It’s been about three months since the last Autumn Store and I’ve genuinely missed doing it. Promoting a line up made completely of out of town bands has its good bits (getting bands you want to see play closer to home, with bands you want to see them play with) and bad bits (finding and bringing amps and bits of drum kit so that they can do that).

All in all, the former outweighs the latter and tonight was a prime example of why those dream line-ups you think of should make the transition on to a stage near you.

Having said that, this line up had a quick reshuffle on the night, so that Amida could go on first as they had to make the daftly early last train back to Manchester – it was at 10.20pm!! This pushed Winston Echo into the most desirable second slot (you get to play to both people who arrive late, or leave early, AND you can drink before going on without running the risk of becoming a boozy headliner). It also ran against every rule that you learn in promoter school about making the acoustic guy go on first.

They did play what was a fantastic set, mixing all kinds of influences. At times they touch on the blend of enthusiasm and sensitivity that you may find caught on the grooves of Postcard records, and at other times they find a sharp chord sequence and rhythm that wouldn’t look out of place on a Buzzcocks song. The upbeat tunes and short songs made them come across as a very summery band, which was just perfect given the weather.

Winston Echo played next and he/they played some excellent lo-fi songs on acoustic guitar and snare drum. Standouts were Winchester Cathedral Choir and Bureaux de Change, the last song was pretty ace too but its title escapes me. They did a Nirvana cover too, which they had lying about from a gig in December when they covered the whole of Nevermind from start to finish.

Genres are crap at the best of times – and if you can argue that the word grunge tells you about the sound of Nevermind but doesn’t give away that it contains some pop-inspired-melodies, the same goes for the anti-folk tag and Winston Echo for, um, much the same reasons. There are some tunes in this set that will get stuck in your head.

Finally, it was time for The Deirdres to play their first Birmingham gig. I could quite happily plunder the whole thesaurus for increasingly amusing chains of words and phrases that are the same as “cracking set” - but I’d still feel I should be adding more positive things to say at the end.

They kick off the set with Electro Magic and coordinated dance moves, and go through a full set of wonderful songs with great quiet/loud dynamics. All seven of them join in with so much energy. Claire, Are We Safe To Be On Our Own is still as magical as the first time I heard it, and a new song called Ball In A Cup fits into the set wonderfully and already feels like a classic that’s so thoroughly established and recognisable that you wouldn’t be surprised if it popped up on the next version of Guitar Hero. Assuming the next version of Guitar Hero comes with glockenspiel and melodica peripherals, obviously.

It genuinely takes me back to the early days of getting into indiepop, so full of happiness with the discovery of this whole new genre that can leave you wandering round rainy streets on starry-eyed-autopilot, and inspired you to make music of your own.

One wonderful thing happened after the gig too, when one of Ace Bushy Striptease gave me a lovely handmade fanzine. Apparently they do a fanzine or something similar for every gig so far – I’m really looking forward to seeing them play the next Tropical Hotdog on Friday 6th June.

The indiepop disco finished off the night and you can find the tracklists on the website. Roll on Sat 7th June when we’ve got Pete Green (now with band), Little My, and Lime Chalks… which I’m a member of, so I don’t think there’s any way that I can get out finding and bringing amps and bits of drumkit to this next one. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it just as much though.

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