Phew! You could almost melt in the heat this evening, although sadly, not from the overpowering mass of sweating bodies, as it seems half the population of Nottingham tonight is staying in to watch 'Big Brother' while the other half are getting pissed in some Student Union bar celebrating the last day of their finals. Well, shame on you, because you missed a treat.

Leicester's Kalena play the sort of indie pop your elders would call "timeless", the odd Squire-bleached staccato here, a blissed out Fruscante twang there. All in all they sound well versed in their art, and when the songs themselves receive a slight buffering around the edges their destiny will be fulfilled.

Next up are local foursome Man Playing Kazoo, a band who've been turning heads in Nottingham for some time. In frontman James Housley, they have a vocalist who can exchange Paul Draper's choirboy spectre for Serj Tankian style bombast at the drop of a hat, while guitarist Chris Walls drops riff after riff of excessive mayhem that recalls the balmy heights of Muse's day out at Earls Court. They rock like a mahogany artefact from Shackletons and deserve to be playing to bigger audiences than this, even if some of their in-between-song "knock knock" jokes were cornier than a day out with the Jolly Green Giant.

Having waited almost two years to see Cardiff's International Karate Plus, it's hard to condense THAT MUCH elation into thirty minutes, which is approximately the length of their set. With their music paying homage to the holy trinity of Malkmus, Black and Mascis respectively, you'd be hard pushed not to find at least one thing irresistable about the IK+.

Guitarist/vocalist Richard Arnold cuts a swathe through the slightly overdone endurance test that is the current new romantic revival, preferring instead to party like it's 1992 while the unmistakeable drawl of Truman's Water emanates from the stereo. 'Glances' is an almost apologetic math-rock lament while 'Brides Abroad', with its "Everything about you I like about somebody else" line still resonating through my head, particularly standing out amongst an engagingly energetic set.

When Arnold and bass player Mike Carter harmonise like a modern day Waldorf and Stadler on 'Cold Times, Hot Metal', before Chris Sklavounos savages the remnants of his drumkit, it soon becomes apparent that despite the underlying humour that can be found in most of the IK+'s songs, there are three seriously underrated musicians waiting to be unleashed on the public at large. If this is how they perform to a room that's 3/4 empty then the prospect of seeing them entertain a full house is mouthwatering so, folks of an apathetic chagrin, get your backsides in gear as the IK+ will soon be coming to a town near you.