Jake Rush & The Bad Habits looked like a Johnny Cash tribute band with their matching black cowboy shirts, yet their musical bent couldn’t be further away from the mournful country yearnings of the original ‘man in black’. An eclectic mix of influences was evident in their set, from Latin American rhythms through to *Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young*’esque harmonies. Apart from some nervous onstage banter with the audience in a couple of extended song breaks, Jake and his band delivered an entertaining set that bespeaks of good things to come.

Perennial power-popsters, Hot Liquid Sex are fresh back from a mini-tour to Melbourne and Coolum and the effects of playing a swathe of live shows was evident in their onstage energy tonight. Lead singer, Ocean, looking relaxed and confident, arrowed her way through the set like a reincarnated Janis Joplin on speed. While sticking with cuts mostly from their debut, Unexpect the Expected, there were a couple of new tunes to whet our appetites for the next instalment from these fine Brisbane ladies.

Every time The Basics play, it is like being transported in a time capsule to a place and a world that hadn’t heard of Global Warming and George W’s War on Terror. However, there was some element that wasn’t quite right tonight. Maybe it was the broken-hearted Kris, asking the audience to help him create a video ‘Kris Loves You’ message. Or perhaps it was Wally and the drum kit that didn’t want to hold together. Unless it was Tim and his random tourette screams into the microphone. Perhaps they’d had a couple too many scotch and sodas before coming to the show, or were in the grip of the all-too-common tour delirium that bands seem to get when they have been beating around on the road for too long. In any case, there was definitely a weird vibe tonight.

It wasn’t until the end of their official set and obligatory encore, once the majority of punters had left the room, that they reappeared onstage, declared that everything was now good and launched into a second set of both covers and cuts from their re-released Get Back LP and Stand Out,/Fit In. And it was with the final chord of Rattle My Chain that we left the Troubadour, feeling reinvigorated by the rollercoaster ride of the hour and a half of slightly-schizophrenic rock that The Basics gave us tonight.