Sadly the most exciting things about this evening’s performances are the two bands’ names. Money Mark and Lucky Jim sound like a pair of optimistic PartyPoker.com addicts. That’s not to say either were bad as such – but there’s a distinction to be made between bad and okay, and tonight this distinction lies passively in the realms of meh.

Tonight’s support act, Lucky Jim, brought a standard Dylan-Bern-Adams pastiche to the stage, and yet, unbelievably, he is not American. And this I only discovered once I’d returned home. I would have bet your life he had an American accent. Wearing all denim, Jim (or is it Lucky?) wore his clichéd and Americanised heart on his world-weary, bar-bleary, emotionally-drenched Gap sleeve. Only one fan seemed to ‘get’ the ‘vibe’, singing along, word for word, eyes-closed, feeling the emotion. Oh, and that was his tour manager. I feel like a twat, but I’m afraid Lucky Jim just failed to convince. I mean come on, he’s from Norwich.

Money Mark followed, coming across like a cool if ageing cartoon cat, all chilaxed in attitude and retro in garb. Nottingham’s The Social was surprisingly busy for the show, suggesting the tagline ‘fourth Beastie Boy’ is enough to draw in a big crowd itself. But despite the performance beginning like a much-anticipated homecoming, the initial rush of funky Fender Rhodes and B3 licks shortly made way for a pervading sense of background grooves. An increasing desire for the band to stop while it was still enjoyable didn’t help.

Perhaps it was the stuffed panther the band lovingly discussed in between every song. Or maybe the melodious, but biteless, Ben Harper-Beatles-esque vocals. Either way, Money Mark stretched the cool cat role a bit too far, and while jazzy-keyboard-mid-tempo lounge-pop is pleasant enough for a while, eventually I left.