The Dancing Screen

With the Film Festival pushed forward to June, Edinburgh's best known cinema seems to have suffered a kind of identity crisis this August. The Cameo's iconic Screen One is playing host to live bands for the first time, as far as anyone can remember, in its distinguished history. Edinburgh's Earl Grey and the Loose Leaves obviously knew they were making history, playing a fervent gig that reaffirmed the Cameo's place on the festival map, and announced the band as a major presence on the local scene.

Consisting in large part of cover versions of early blues and bluegrass tunes, the Loose Leaves' passion for their musical heroes was overwhelmingly infectious. Such was the sustained energy, grit and sheer indulgence of their two and a half hour set, the audience were fast and long on their feet, frowning with pleasure and dancing like they just didn't care.

Twin front men Andy Stockdale and the effusive Corey Gibson combined well, the former driving the band with rootsy acoustic and riotous electric guitar licks. But Gibson's performance left the audience in no doubt as to which of the two lays claim to the title of Earl Grey. Boasting consummate harmonica skills he stood tall in first a suit jacket, then a shirt, then a vest, hurling himself up and down the blues scales and bending notes like he wanted to snap them. Add to that a rasping voice that sounds as if he has the Kings of Leon stuck in his throat and with which he roared out Howlin' Wolf, Sun House and Captain Beefheart songs that surely had their long-dead writers jiving in their graves. Ably held together by tight drumming from Hugo Pengelly and bold, thump thump bass from Robin Duncan, the Loose Leaves played with a raw, barn dance energy that showcased the blues of an earlier era in all their rough, honest glory.

Perhaps most exciting of all was the smattering of their own material across the set. 42 Day Blues, penned by Gibson, is a stripped down, neatly observed lament for civil freedoms under terror legislation, sung with a careful smile. But best of all was Stockdale's Needle in the Sand, a climactic bass-heavy highlight that closed the set with real aplomb. This is a band worth watching.