eX-Girl, Temple Bar Music Centre, Dublin, 12^th July 2002.

There really is no-one else quite like eX-Girl. People talk about crossover bands and genre-mixing bands, but unless you've heard these guys you don't know what you're talking about. I mean, they blend an obvious love for scuzzed-up garage and punk rock with avant-garde experimentation, great harmony singing and operatic vocals. They are genre-less, eccentric and crazy. Great live though.

Seeing as they visited these shores as support for Mike Patton's Tomahawk earlier this year, it seems safe to say that they're intent in making their mark on Ireland. It's also safe to say that eX-Girl grabbed everyone's attention last time around if the broad mix of people crammed into the Music Centre was anything to go by.

Out in the main bar, the DJs, Chicks on Decks, made sure everyone had good music to happily get drunk to, which is the best way to experience eX-Girl, probably because they seem to make some sense when you've been drinking, while support acts The Chalets, Boxes and A Lazarus Soul got the crowd in the venue warmed up nicely.

It was the three oriental girls that everyone was here to see, though, and from the moment they took to the stage dressed up like Pokemon caterpillars, the show was theirs. We were blasted with rock riffs, confused by mad genre changes, crazy three-part vocal harmony singing, sharp opera style singing and shot by the bassist's laser gun.

An eX-Girl show is nothing less than a full frontal attack on the senses. Yeah, it's mostly all pre-planned, from the crazy caterpillar dance, to the spiralling dancing to the drummers staccato chant of "We... Love... You... Come... To... Our... Show". I may not have had a clue what was going on half the time but hey, I had fun. That's all that matters.

Ken McGrath