It says much for the bravado of Athlete that they cast aside perhaps the one song already familiar to tonight's audience within minutes of striding onstage.
'Westside', opening track of the band's highly promising debut EP, contains much of what should be realised about the street style and savvy of this emerging London quartet.
A shabby but classic, cocky yet introspective, straight-ahead but utterly unpredictable group, Athlete clearly have a degree of the attitude swamping the new breed of guitar music.
However, rather than calculating thrash quotient, sweat investment and stylised poise deficit to equal an impossibly cool formula, there is a considered current beneath the surface, beyond bluster and sonic histrionics.
The Style Council, Beach Boys, Steely Dan, Super Furry Animals and XTC are all name-checked in the wake of an accomplished performance, but Athlete are a slippery beast. The way 'Westside' slides from a beguiling strum into a towering drama of pop music assassination, including three-part harmonies, is just the first example of their invention and a desire to connect complex song structures.
As electric is the deranged middle section of an anthemic 'This Is Beautiful', the swaggering 'You Got The Style' and 'New Project', which comes complete with a glorious swathe of melodica and what sounds like underwater harps, played by baby-faced keys man Tim Wanstall.
Indeed, the busted synth element of Athlete's sound is a vital part of their potential, with the tremendous 'Dungeoness' riding-out on an analogue rainbow of bulbous notes, a widescreen chorus and frazzled 70s riffing.
And when frontman Joel Pott tells you the track is about a day-out "with my lady and my parents" and not some drug-fuelled carnage on top of a power station, you may begin to understand that Athlete are unlike anyone else currently kicking against the tide. Long may it continue and more music please.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the lumbering Minuteman make Athlete look like they've already reached The Promised Land. In doing so, frontman Matt Jones brings hallucinations of the horrific sound and vision that could be realised if Iggy Pop, Tom Petty and Reef's Gary Stringer were morphed and declared, "hey, let's rock!"
A band of such bloated, directionless thunder has not been seen in these parts for some time, but with heads down and hair up, it must be difficult to realise what it is exactly you're doing to your career.
Working primarily in a very sophisticated two-speed vacuum, tracks such as 'Words Fail Me Now', '5,000 Minutes Of Pain' and the dreadful current single 'Gave You All The Blame', the group appear to actually believe they're American, which is not to say that the Speed One sections don't have an initially intriguing, Sparklehorseesque camouflage.
However, true horror is witnessed at Speed Two, when quarries of dust-infested axe rubble are dumped from the sky onto your prone frame, leaving you unable to breathe let alone see or hear. Which, at the time, seems like a preferable state of mind to the Minuteman experience.
And it's all rather a shame, because Jones so looks like the rock star in waiting. He could be waiting some considerable time.
