Sparklehorse were a wrong fit right from the start. The musicians seemed odd sharing a stage, as if they all wandered off from different bands and ended up together.
The bassist was all sleek-haired foxiness, standing next to a rocker frontman in aviator shades, flanked by a mop-topped, Sixties-refugee keyboardist, with a beaniewearing drummer at the back.
The music shouldn't have fitted together either, the songs jumping from the beautiful melancholy of Homecoming Queen to the more jagged sound of their rockier songs, via some skewed lo-fi tracks which recalled early Pavement.
But the set was absolutely seamless and the audience was mesmerised.
Sparklehorse were curious, and, when singer Mark Linkous repeatedly sang "I woke up in a burned out basement"
backed by lightning-like flickers of white light, a little spooky.
The lyrics were intricate, shot through with references to horses, such as the description of a "fiery mane" or the Shakespeare-stealing "a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse".
Surrounded by so many bands trotting out familiar-sounding tunes with words which mean nothing, Sparklehorse made you stop and do a double-take - and that can only be a good thing.
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