When the white backdrop begins to flicker and Barry 7's dodgy, homemade woman-on-woman porn movie appears up the screen, it starts to become clear this will be no ordinary, run-of-the-mill gig.
In fact these avant-garde surrealists are giving us the opportunity to witness their 'art', in all senses of the word, first hand. As Barry's film, 'Plug Me In', (it's also the promo for their recent single of the same name) begins to hot up - and there is very little to it apart from two girlies, their genitalia, a selection of small cameras, a g-string and a badly fitting bikini-top - so do the expectant audience.
The foursome crash onto the stage proudly displaying their artistic materials - Moogs, Korgs, vocoders, a strange keyboard/guitar hybrid gadget and the much worshipped theramin to name but a few - and despite the dreary minimalism of the set, they immediately prove that they know exactly how to use them.
What follows is a barrage of befuddled electronica, of the enjoyable, grin-until-your-cheeks-hurt kind. It's all so furiously shook up and liberally splashed around that the ANTX sound is pretty hard to define.
Reminiscent of wacky, 'Rock Lobster'-loving forerunners the B-52's, ANTX have stacked themselves with up so much cheese, of the low budget, 50's, sci-fi b-movie kind, that they'll never go hungry. And it's that tongue-in-cheek madness that has brought us all here tonight.
The thundering 'Brothel Charge', from the band's recent and rather splendid 'Add Insult To Injury' long-player, gets things cranked up and blasts out of the monitors knocking all those hypothetical bobby-socks off. Next 'Kingdom of Shades', which slinks along like a sinister and scary soundtrack from an American haunted house cartoon. Argh! Watch out Scooby!
'Metal Fingers Inside My Body' does a brilliant job of whipping ANTX devotees into a moshing frenzy, and their energy is infectious. Although the set remains as mad as f*** throughout, there are times when perhaps the band (and the more laid back members of the audience) may not be slabbering with quite the same anticipation as when things got started.
Then again maybe it's just as well. This little student union has probably had all the swamp-rock stomping it can take for one night.
To check out Barry 7's DJ set at dotmusic's Transit night in July CLICK HERE.
