Elsewhere in Sydney this evening, Melbourne's Hoss were making their long awaited return to these parts, but I'd already organised to be here tonight, so I just have to hope that they come back this way soon (e.g. sooner than the three or four years it's been since the last visit). In the meantime, I was well satiated on Spanish culinary delights and right ready for some serious rock'n'roll action (NB Since Damien Lovelock's spoken word performance back in January, I'm boycotting the Spanish Club in a probably pointless gesture of sympathy and solidarity, but that still leaves plenty of other eating establishments to choose from down at the little Madrid end of Liverpool Street). First we look after the body and then we look after the soul.

Okay, yes there was a band on before the Del Emmas this evening, but I'd eaten dinner in the company of my friend Frank, who'd heard some of the new Rocket Science album on JJJ and was keen to see if their live show was able to deliver on the promise that he felt those studio tracks were making. Just when you think dinner is finished and it's time to go, Frank has a very persuasive way of suggesting that there's more than enough time for one more bottle of red/a couple of ports/a liqueur/whatever, so it was all his fault that I was late... Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Del Emmas are coming along very nicely as a band, at least in my opinion though there does seem to be a small but resolute percentage of the population who have written them off on the basis of some of their very early, less than sparkling performances and aren't of a mind to reconsider (or even, one suspects, give them a shot at another, impartial hearing). I do find myself pining (still) for the old homogeneous look of the matching black wigs and sunnies days, but tonight effectively they at least met me half way by wearing matching new retro uniforms (although the keyboard player did have her top pocket/emblem sewn over the wrong breast).

Despite having acquired a new body on the drum stool since I last saw them in December, they played another solid set in their entertaining trademark garage-trash style, even if Frank was unmoved by their Beatles and other more general '60s influences. For Frank, decent music begins with ska and punk and he's not greatly interested in much prior to that, or indeed light, throwaway pop in general (his one-time ownership of a Men At Work album being just a youthful aberration that we've all put behind us).

Next up were Dallas Crane with a further generous serving of that twin guitar-driven '80s Oz rock sound that I found so impressive at the Hopetoun back in January. Once again, the Metro's sound system demonstrated clearly that no matter how good a band sounds anywhere else, it always sounds even better at the Metro. The band weren't the least bit shy either about making full use of the Metro's considerably greater stage room compared with the cramped, er cosy, Hoey.

Frank wasn't nearly so overwhelmed however, muttering something about ELO under his breath. Intellectually I could understand where he was coming from, but emotionally I responded on a subconscious, almost cellular, level. They may become a little bombastic and grandiloquent at times, but their sound was still honest rock'n'roll at its core, played aggressively but sincerely, without ever coming close to overbalancing into anything approaching the empty excesses of homogenized, stadium rock.

I certainly wasn't the only one to be impressed either. Nipping down the front to the foot of the stage to grab a few snaps to liven up this review, I crossed paths with the Del Emmas' bass player, also with camera in hand. Jeez, if bands are going to start doing the photography at their gigs, how long before they start writing their own reviews as well? It's the thin end of the wedge!

Rocket Science unleashed themselves upon us after what seemed like a longer than advertised break, during which Frank raided the Metro's bar while I spent a good deal of time cursing people who chew gum (it's not the chewing that I take issue with, it's the leaving of it on the backs and undersides of handrails that fair rips the crotch out of my nightie and leaves a stain on my evening).

When talking about Rocket Science I often seem to find myself falling back upon aeronautical analogies. Maybe it's because their set tonight was bracketed, as often seems to be the case, by the songs "International Jetset" and "Jet Lag" or maybe it's because they really do sound like peak hour at Sydney airport when they hit their stride. To tell the truth, while they did open with "International Jetset" and "Jet Lag" was an encore, it wasn't actually the last song; in reality they closed with "Six Foot Four", but I'm trying to make a point here.

Not since I last saw Nunchukka Superfly has volume played so much of a role in a band's performance, with the band members commanding not only their instruments but seemingly the air itself. It's not all just noise of course; there's also an abundance of energy, originality and even a touch of theatricality, with frontman Roman Tucker alternately wrestling with his keyboard (as if there's a wild animal trapped inside, incessantly and vigorously trying to make its escape) or standing transfixed with his hand millimetres away from the upright rod of the theremin (as if it's the black slab from "2001" and he's about to receive a major electrical evolutionary impulse if he touches it - or maybe he's actively trying to touch it and it's generating a force field to repel his hand), but the real drama is in the music itself.

Did I once say that Rocket Science might have been a trifle oversold and had yet to fully live up to their hype? Yep, I did; about 18 months ago. I take it back. Actually I took it back a while ago (only a couple of months after I said it), although my retraction may have been missed since it came when they supported Boss Hogg, so that review was not under Rocket Science's name. When someone gets something wrong, there's an obligation to 'fess up publicly. I cheerfully do so here and now. Again. Some hardliners might suggest that such a simple acknowledgment isn't enough, that such an egregious error demands that the culprit be publicly whipped naked, but I don't see the need to go that far (and if I'm getting off lightly, then I can assure you, so are you).

Starting with a few stuttering chords on the organ, like some enormous (and dangerous) beast being prodded reluctantly into wakefulness from its deep and much enjoyed slumber, the band picks up the pace until it's at full tilt and running headlong into "Heavy Traffic". From there on, there's no looking back; like the Ferrari driver in the film "Gumball Rally", it's time rip out the rearview mirror and toss it out of the window. "First rule of Italian motor racing: what is behind you is not important". Despite their thundering sixties garage sounds, like Arnold Schwarzenegger crashing his car into that police station foyer in an obvious misunderstanding of how "valet parking" works, Rocket Science are not looking behind them either.

Neo garage/psych, mixed in with a little old style R&B, has certainly been a starting point for them, but like Swedish rockers Silverbullit and Mazarine Street, with whom they have far more in common than anyone in Australia that I can think of (but am I the only one who catches a strong fragrance of late Easybeats in "Run Like A Gun"?), they're not placing any apparent restrictions on their music just to conform to a perceived style. Hence they can go from an angry near metal roar to a lush, Kraftwerk inspired soundtrack for a Hammer horror film; from the relaxed, smooth groove of "One Robot" to the sweaty psychosis of "Crazy" to the haunted paranoia of "Being Followed".

They can even mix primitive rhythms and electronica within the same song, as in "Copycat" (with maybe just a slight nod toward Hawkwind), ending up with a "Rite Of Spring" for the new millennium, in which it's easy to imagine the passengers in the first class section on a brand new shiny silver jet liner finding themselves the victims of a tribe of ravenous cannibals erupting angrily out of economy when the stewardesses run out of prepackaged airline meals...

Tonight they hung the full works out on show for all to see and appreciate. Afterwards, if Frank was expressing any reservations about the performance, I didn't catch them. Me, if I'd been any happier it would have been a waste of time putting on clean underwear this morning...- John McPharlin

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