A week after Firefest and three of the bands who graced the stages in Nottingham were re-united for this show at London's Camden Underworld. First to hit the stage were Crimes Of Passion who were unleashing themselves on the capital for the first time since their unveiling at the Firefest Pre-Show bash. Despite a pretty lousy sound the band, as is there wont, delivered their short set with a gusto and enthusiasm that I guess they will become synonymous with over time. The set list was pretty much the same as the Firefest show with Exit Wound once again the highlight thanks to its grinding riffs and aggressive vocal melody. The smallish crows certainly seemed to enjoy what Crimes Of Passion had to offer and I guess, for an introduction to London, the band got exactly what they wanted out of the show and won some new friends along the way.

One of the things that this reviewer looks for in a band is consistency and having commented on Shy, during their Firefest performance, took Rock City by the throat and rocked it to within an inch of it's life I was looking for more of the same in London. Well the Underworld certainly got the same treatment as the band once again delivered a near perfect set mixing older classics such as 'Break Down The Walls' & 'Emergency' with newer songs such as the Unfinished Business paring of Skydiving & No Other Way.

If vocalist Tony Mills was domineering in Nottingham, on the more confined stage of the Underworld he positively towered over the audience and yet despite the somewhat menacing stage persona chatting to Mr Mills afterwards you couldn't hope to meet a nicer man. However for all Mill's presence the star of the show tonight was guitarist Steve Harris. Perhaps because I was lucky enough to be Harris' side of the stage I was struck by just how good a six stringer the man is, ripping out licks and solos with apparent ease and yet never once undermining the song with needless widdling but rather adding value to the whole with his subtle style.

Shy are definitely a band with a new lease of life and hopefully on an upward curve, they certainly deserve it and now all I need to do is catch a headline performance to see if they deliver in 90 minutes what they certainly do in forty five.

I honestly don't know whether Vaughn as a band felt a sense of competition following Shy on stage for the second time in a week, but if they did then they certainly rose to the occasion. The previous night in Birmingham Vaughn  appeared to have wiped away the slight imperfections that had blighted their Firefest performance, well in London those same gremlins were banished to another dimension as the band produced a performance as good as any I have ever seen from them.

All of a sudden there was this huge sense of confidence on stage, not just from Danny Vaughn, but from the whole band and, although the set list was exactly the same as in Birmingham, those same songs seemed to be infused with more of a swagger and groove than had been previously apparent, no more so than in the Flesh & Blood track 'Blues For Daze' which simply oozed class from Vaughn's harmonica  to the guitar licks of Pat Heath.

Perhaps the thing which differentiated this gig from previous Vaughn shows was the sense of fun that was emanating from the stage, all five members of the band seemed to have permanent grins plastered all over their faces as if they knew that everything was falling into place and this sense of enjoyment passed into the audience as the wholeof the Underworld seemd to be bouncing up and down to every songs, from the older Waysted material right through to newer songs such as 'Blessing In Disguise' & 'Nothing At All' culled from the 'From The Inside' album.

if there was a downside to the show it was once again the crowd turnout, which was not as good as one could have hoped for and all three bands deserved but, suffice to say, for those who made the effort this must go down as one of the shows of the year and in the Shy vs Vaughn stakes I think we can call this one an honourable draw as both bands were on top of their game and this time they both rocked London to within half a millimetre of its life.

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