I hopped on the tube and went up to The Legion on Old Street. My favourite band, Host, were due to play with fellow Northamptonshire band The Departure. Both, according to the listings, are “hotly tipped”. I have certainly tipped Host in the past, and on a few notable occasions, quite hotly. Maybe that's what they mean. Maybe my opinion is worth something.

I get there early, and Steve is wrestling with his guitar amp which is bellowing out horrible noises at high volume, and, for once, not because of what he's actually playing through it. , who was doing the sound for them, adopted the expression he uses when things go wrong: peering through his fingers while shaking his head. I pipe up. “Our rehearsal room is around the corner. You're welcome to borrow my amp.” We walk the 10 minute journey, to find the rehearsal room locked. We place an urgent phonecall back to the venue. “Can we use The Departure's guitar amp?” On returning, there is much faffing around as the guitar amps are swapped over, and the members of Host re-aligned onstage. Finally they're ready to soundcheck. Steve plugs in. “BzzzGGGGRRRRRRBZBZZZZZ” goes the amp. It was his guitar lead that was faulty all along. I see the promoter rolling his eyes, which is slightly unfair, as about a week ago he apparently didn't even know where to hire a PA, or what that PA might actually consist of. We were lucky that didn't have to make Host sound good using a couple of egg boxes and a dead worm.

Before the gig, and I attempt to retire to somewhere quiet, and after a while realise that the place is skilfully set up so you're always equidistant from a deafening source of sound. We cut our losses and sit on wooden chairs, sipping halves of bitter, occasionally shouting over the din and generally feeling old. The lugubrious Leighton Crook, from the Country Teasers and a zillion other bands, joined us at the table and managed to out-grump both of us, despite being a good deal younger. “I hate it” and “It's awful” are his trustiest and most-used phrases, and he peppered them into the conversation liberally.

Host went onstage.

They played the best gig I've ever seen them do. The sound was immaculate, the performance fiery, every song hitting the back of the net. Rumour has it that someone from the NME was there to review it; if so, they couldn't have picked a better gig to see, and if they didn't like it this time, they ain't never gonna like it. I turned around during “Young And Bulletproof” to scowl at the 40 or so people who had peeled away to the bar to “hang out” near ex-members of Kenickie, as if that was going to score them any street cred. “You are ignorant liggers and you disgust me with your vile preening,” I shouted. Emily was standing next to me. “What?” she shouted back. “Oh, nothing,” I replied.

At the back of the venue two girls had found a piano and were pretending to play it.

After Host: The Departure. They all wear eyeliner and have their hair dyed black and cut into amusing shapes, except the singer, who looks like a student geography teacher, and also sings like one. They start to play, and it's like the years 1983-2003 have never happened. Both guitarists are throwing shapes that are remeniscent of dancing students in a crowd on The Tube or The Oxford Roadshow, during a substandard performance by The Cure: i.e. ungainly, angular and awkward. Their music, too, pastiches that embryonic early 80s goth music in a scarily accurate way, and in my slightly drunken state I start to heckle after the 1st song. “1982! A great year!” The band didn't react, but then again, why should they, I was being profoundly irritating. I walked to the back of the room and took a picture of them.

As I stood there, having a conversation with about bands like this who trade in originality and good songwriting for endless rehearsals and enormous amplifiers, I noticed a middle-aged Japanese couple who had inexplicably paid to get in, and were sitting there quietly under a sign which said “bowl of sausages: £3″.

They weren't enjoying it either, but for different reasons. I almost went up to them and shouted “Why are you here?” but bottled out at the last minute. I just carried on shouting things like “Skeletal Family” and “Rose Of Avalanche” at the stage inbetween songs.

After the gig I ran on the spot to the Dub Narcotic Sound System and Dogs Die In Hot Cars, before eventually stealing off into the night. Outside the venue The Departure were getting into their van. I stopped and leaned in. “Hello.” I said. They nodded back at me casually; they're obviously getting used to the unwanted attentions of 30-something men who are eager to compliment them on recreating music of yesteryear so accurately. “Do you know the last band from Northampton who could afford to have smoked glass in the windows of their Transit van?” I asked them. The singer replied “The Departure.” Hm. “No, you misunderstand me. Who were the LAST band from Northampton who could afford to have smoked glass in the windows of their Transit van.” The subtle re-emphasis worked. “Oh! Er.. I don't know.” “Nor me,” I said. “I have no answers. Purely rhetorical. But thanks for the gig… I shouted '1982' after the first song.” The singer smiled. “I heard that. 1982… Definitely an influence.” I wander off, thinking of the raising of the Mary Rose, that bloke finding his way to the Queen's bedroom, and Mark Thatcher getting hopelessly lost in the desert. '82. Yep, a good year.