Some gigs you go to for a laugh, some for a sing-along, others for a curious gawp, and some for a good old mosh.

Occasionally, however, if you're lucky, you'll come across a band that takes you somewhere.

Guillemots are one of those bands, and tonight's show was a typical long-haul voyage to the outer reaches of the imagination.

Frontman Fyfe Dangerfield denies being the driving force behind the band, but that's only because he's a modest kind of bloke.

In fact he is the pilot, whose feverish imagination takes listeners on a bizarre odyssey, not just lyrically (dodging bombs, shining dragons, lakes, borderlines and oceans in the sky), but musically, with everything from chunky indie-rock, to electronic beats and loops, breathy love songs and hypnotic samba rhythms.

There's just so much here. While most bands stick to a sound and style throughout their set - if not their entire career - Guillemots can't even follow the rules for a single song.

They'll start off melodic and naive, but then it all starts to melt and disintegrate, revealing new layers of meaning as it morphs into something utterly unexpected.

Of course, we're used to that, which is why we paid to come, but still the feeling is thrilling, like jumping on a merry-go-round, only to find it turning into a roller coaster.

Tonight's show gave us everything we loved from debut Through the Windowpane (Made Up Love Song, Trains to Brazil, and the title track), but, in typical style, spliced in the fuller, beat-laden epics from new album Red - including the rousing Get Over It.

The whole carnival came to a crashing crescendo with Sao Paulo - a delicious combination of downbeat lyrics and fantastically uplifting Brazilian street rhythms, worthy of a Rio bloco.

A sublime night of twists, turns and flights of fancy.

5:07pm Tuesday 11th March 2008

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