Tonight The Dukes came to town to visit Music Lab and commanded all of our attentions with a beautiful debut performance.

One feature of this evening was the fact that we had no backing boards to absorb the sound, as Vince is currently measuring up the stage for new curtains and a lighting rig coming soon! So the sound was a little bouncy due to reflections and we had had to keep it all down a bit, but managed to get some great sounds happening none the less.

Another feature was the fact that we had our best crowd ever and managed to pack the place out for a moment or two.

The evening started off with The Flaming Galahs and friends belting out a few of their favourites. Thankfully we were joined by the ever amazing Dan on keys tonight, plus Jiri and Ben joined in with some impro vocals, while Rich jumped on the bass for a bit.

Then it was over to Rebecca, Jiri and friends for another one of their amazing impro sessions with the awesome Richard impressing as always on the guitar. I note that Rich seems to bring a different guitar every night and was true to form again in that respect.

Then it was time for the big debut of the evening - The Dukes. And certainly they did impress! There were a few issues with sound levels at first but they were soon into full swing and by the end of their 20 minutes, they left us all wanting more. The Dukes consited of two acoustics, bass and a lead vocalist, with Anthony as fill in drummer for the night.

By then it was time for an assortment of configurations as the jamming continued for the rest of the evening, until finally at the end we were treated to Marnie's new band project put together tonight for her performance tomorrow at The Harp. She was joined on stage by Tim and Ben Wilson, plus some keys from Dan and some bass from Sasha. As always, whatever she does, Marnie presented another riveting performance and it was great to see her let loose with some of the punky style that she is a natural at. Sadly the recording did not work for that part of the night so you will have to wait in suspense for another chance to catch this amazing event.