Les Incompetents - Nambucca, London

Les Incompetents are a public-schoolboy sixth form mufti band out of control. Les Incompetents are a bundle of puppies wriggling under a mohair blanket. Les Incompetents are a basket of boners hidden in a tree by a greedy witch. Only one of these is a true fact. Snuggled on a charmless bill at Cargo last summer, they loped their way into my frontal lobes. They sound like Dexy’s Midnight Runners and The Clash and Chas and Dave. Don’t hold that against them. It’s rabble-rousing raggle-taggle brilliance.

Tonight there’s a hundred of them (six). They seem about five years old, clambering on speaker stacks, crowd-surfing, infighting, a bunch of indie Minipops cracked out on crystal meth. Singer Frederick sports Woody Allen specs and sings in a booming lisp. He’s delightfully accessorised in a pale blue trenchcoat and a Star of David cap. He points. He pouts. He hits the cymbals with a stick! Their other singer Billy - challenging Max Tundra for the title of Shortest Man In Indie - is a barrel of curly-haired puppy fat with the voice of a granddad, a peculiar and perverse combination, like a talking dog.

Tonight’s got it all - a drunken, beautiful promoter who refuses to leave the stage and instead staggers around, conducting the audience, force-feeding pints to furious band members, stage-diving, swooning; a full-sized stage invasion by the most charismatic teenagers this town’s got to offer; death-or-glory tuneage and, oh yeah, the moment that should form this review’s headline, when FRED PUTS THE ‘LES’ IN LES INC by grabbing the promoter and planting a slow and generous French kiss upon his open, beer-shined lips. Songs, staggering live shows and the most homoerotic moment I’ve ever seen at an indie gig? If this is incompetence, I can’t wait to see proficiency.