Born With Stripes

Last Friday I went to The Chameleon (where else?) to see a little acoustic gig we'd organised last minute as Nick didn't have a proper show in the diary that night. He'd asked me to hastily book a couple of acts who could play an acoustic set each. So, I went and asked The Sunbathers, and a band who had posted on the anorak forum asking for a drummer, called Born With Stripes.

The Sunbathers were their usual joyful self, all handclaps one minute - genuine wistfulness the next. Most of their sings are about the seaside, and this I heartily approve of.

Before them, Born With Stripes turned up as a duo. Alarmingly young (although old enough to have both finished university), they picked up a couple of guitars and belted out half a dozen sunshine pop numbers that put me in mind of Beulah at their most optimistic, mid-period Boo Radleys or Belle and Sebastian at their poppermost.

On the other side of The Chameleon's big glass window there was a violent, loud, witless street party taking place. Inside the ramshackle walls of The Chameleon, listening to Born With Stripes and The Sunbathers, the 20 or so of us listening felt like we were in the best type of cocoon. Safe and sound.