A gig that lurched from inspired to exasperating, with Truthpaste stealing hearts, Ebbb finding their footing, and The Orchestra (For Now) testing just how loud one man can reasonably scream.

Tonight, I am raucously sober and going to see The Orchestra (For Now), of which I have been a truly punchdrunk fan of for approximately two years now (circa their incredible set at the Lexington). However, unlike my previous encounters with this band, they are not supporting someone, but being supported themselves, by Truthpaste and Ebbb. I will admit, I had spied Truthpaste on band posters before and pigeonholed them as a joke band, an experiment for experimentation's sake, as opposed to something serious. I was very, very wrong. When they rolled on stage with their eclectic mix of rock-centric instruments I thought, "Oh damn, another BCNR clone..." and some of the opening notes to their songs made me immediately shiver with recognition: "Isn't this melody pilfered?"

But they always found a way to vary it, to carry a tune that made sense but was never predictable, a quality I find extremely invigorating in music. If I can tell how it's going to go, I'm just not paying attention. That is not my jam. Truthpaste had such an amazing attention to detail with the plicky acoustic melodies they deployed in their last few songs. I kept turning to my associate, Pink, and brandising an unwipeable smile that glowed even in the dim light of the Scala back section. They really got into a thing of their own, despite their singer sounding tonally a little too much like the rest of the BCNR cast who took up vocal duties, post-Wood.

To tell the truth, Truthpaste kicked so much ass it's a surprise their feet can still muster up the energy to jig around the stage. I loved their set, to the degree that my mind was perhaps unwilling to accept that maybe they were given third billing. Then came Ebbb, who I thought were a twosome until I saw the laptop-programming guy begin to move. All that their first two songs generated in me was a longing to get online and book Truthpaste tickets immediately.

Soon, Ebbb hit a fantastically synapse-linking groove, simultaneously Animal Collective (shitloads of reverb, layered synth and vocals) and Tom Grennan. However, despite the stadium-rock reverb, the impact wasn't always there in the quiet moments. Where a Grennan-tier singer makes you think that he's in the room with you, I felt like I wasn't in the room with Ebbb, and they were but ten metres away! Still, not everyone has to be the master of that specific type of singing. Their high points came from the more Animal Collective mush of synth and vocal and drum. The last two songs took a more crescendo heavy approach to structure, and it suits them okay, no more or less than a flatter one. My only lasting complaint is that if you have to tell people how to spell the name of your band at the end of your set, pick a better damn name. It was almost like I'd asked him in the smoking area what it was called. The cry of "And that's with three Bs" stunk of a man who has made a poor decision at some point in his life and is just trying to live with it. Aside from the name, great set from Ebbb (with three Bs!)

So then: the main event. Tuning, preparing, the usual. But then, they leave the stage! Which is very revealing: they're at a size where they still have to prepare most of their own gear, but not too small for a big walk-on!

They bounded on, Neil Thomson’s hair bouncing like a spaniel. His enthusiasm is appropriate as they begin curtly with an unreleased song titled ‘Neil’s Favourite’. They then begin the set proper with a hat-trick of their classic material from Plan 75 / 76 — beginning with ‘Skins’. Now, I love this song, the version of it on my computer at home (ripped from the aforementioned Lexington set) has the highest play count of any song I’ve ever listened to. So, to see it live again is always a treat, with Joe Scarisbrick limping, lilting, caressing the microphone. Two songs in, the schtick is wearing a little thin, though, and the strange movements look less like he’s genuinely emoting and more like symptoms of an as-yet undiagnosed musculoskeletal condition. These movements are really jarring, paired with a smattering of yelps he pockmarks the songs with. It’s not all that pleasant. As I said in my Plan 76 review, TO(FN) succeed when their buildups are earned, and having three cataclysmic songs batter you one after the other is either repetitive songwriting or bad setlist ordering.

The set picks up again with ‘The Administration’, which showcases some of their more subdued sections, with an excellent performance by Bao-Smith & Bickerstaff. ‘Escape From New York’ is also played excellently. Then, two new songs — and it is here I’d like to make a point about band progression in the Windmill-adjacent scene. It seems that once a band has done the dirty work of putting five to ten decent 5-minute compositions down, they are officially allowed to write a long, largely instrumental, massive rolling crescendo of a song about some vague lost love, or, as I will call it, a ‘Basketball Shoes’. It seems a rite of passage, and the melancholy lyrics of ‘Charlie’s Theme’ (absolutely no comment on how similar that is to BC,NR) get Joe to croon about growing up into a person you never wanted to be, which is followed by a fully instrumental climax. Thankfully, Joe has not yet plastered lyrics over this, and it was a highlight of the set for that exact reason. He merely stood, Frankenstein-hunched over the piano in his TEXAS TECH hoodie, playing his part, which I suppose is the best thing you can do in a band of seven.

One overarching complaint that I have about TO(FN) is that it seems that a longer the song is in rotation, the louder they play it, and the louder they play it, the more Joe screams over the top of it. A scream is deserved at the end of Wake Robin (“we’ve lost… EVERYTHING!”), but not randomly in the middle of some of their more middle-of-the-road songs. They had, at this gig, six microphones! They could have used the vocal talents of literally everybody but the drummer, yet, 95% of the time, it was Joe front and centre, to the point where I was glad when someone screamed “Captains orders trickle down” during ‘Escape From New York’ — it was a welcome reprieve from Joe.

The audience was lively and funny, one member shouting “That’s how we play the DRUMS” in a booming shout, after Charlie Hancock had lost control of a cymbal during the intro to ‘Deplore You / Farmer’s Market’. Scala’s a good venue for that sort of thing, the mix of people standing around me were fairly broad in age, although I suspect that the pit at the front was more Zoomer-intensive. They had a propensity to whoop and scream over the most quiet and technical parts of the songs, though, which was irritating.

Now, at some point, Joe tells everyone he’s going to do an encore. What exactly is the point of doing an encore if everyone knows you’re going to do one? It’s just a pointless game of musical peekaboo that I’m just not really invested in. Bickerstaff leaves his guitar on stage in front of an amp, creating feedback, before they all rush back on stage (Hancock now minus shirt) and perform ‘Wake Robin’ to absolutely torrential applause. A great finale to a pretty fantastic set. Just tell Joe to keep it down a little, you've got six microphones!