As always, attending a show at The Zoo in the Brisbane summer is like going into an equatorial hothouse wearing thermal underpants and an Eskimo Inuit. When will The Zoo finally get around to air-conditioning their venue, or perhaps they cleverly realise that punters who sweat excessively buy more beer. Tonight’s sweaty Wednesday hosts an evening of Grrrl-powered pop/punk/alt-country, provided by Kristy London & The Other Halves, Hot Liquid Sex, and Brianna Carpenter.

Often, punters assume that the first support act on a bill is going to be average, and choose to wait until later in the evening to arrive. This was a shame tonight, because Brianna Carpenter was far from average. Flying solo, with just her acoustic guitar for company, she turned out a set of quirky pop songs. Folk-like at times, alt-country generally, and reminiscent of Kate Bush at others, Brianna endeared herself to the early crowd.

If seemed though, that tonight’s audience were there for Hot Liquid Sex, who took to the stage after a short changeover, amid loud cheering from the burgeoning dance floor. These ladies get better and better every time I see them, and tonight they pulled out a set of high-powered grrrl pop-punk, with Ocean singing and playing guitar, Ange powering away on drums, and Nat working the bass guitar with everything she had. The song that really stood out was La, a pseudo-reggae tune with Nat taking vocal duties. Their set passed quickly, and it was with obvious disappointment to both band and audience, that they were only allowed to do ‘one more’...soundguy’s orders.

After another short changeover time, Kristy London & The Other Halves took to the stage, with a projected backdrop and glowing love hearts for visual effect. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Kristy London was a red-haired Missy Higgins on guitar, as the similarities between the two voices and song styles is uncanny. That being said, Kristy and her band (well, a bass player and drummer) pulled out an energetic set of tunes from debut EP, Hearts, as well as their Summer demo, which the first 100 people received for free as they arrived at the venue. Musically succinct, the band marched through a range of stylistic flavours, including pop, soul, rock and alt-country. Their lively cover of The Beatles’ Here Comes The Sun, was a nice precursor for their appearance at next week’s Beatle’s tribute show at The Troubadour. All too soon though, the clock struck midnight, and we were sent home to bed, because after all, it was a school night.