The only dispiriting thing about last night’s more-than-decent Gappy Tooth Night was the Incredible Rotating Audience. Now I understand that a few people will always be gormless enough to shell out four quid to see their mates’ band and then scarper, but it felt like the entire audience for Outcry bogged off after their set, which could have been demoralising for the other acts, and represents a lousy investment for the culprits who missed a lively indie band and a bona-fide guitar genius due to their precipitate departure. Hey, people! There’s a credit crunch out there! You paid for three bands-get your money’s worth!

Rant over: Bicester’s Outcry is an ambitious four-piece who deliver a strange but wholesome confection pitched midway between Interpol and Elton John. The former are evoked principally in Joe O’Neill’s downstrummed guitar picks and the latter in Mark Robert’s solid if unspectacular low-end piano playing. To be fair to him, the absence of a bass player forced him to take this role so that the bottom didn’t drop out- to be honest, I could see no legitimate artistic reason for dispensing with the bassist- for a band clearly intent on mass appeal, they need to fill this hole.

The fact that Outcry have it in them to conquer Radio 1 (or more likely Radio 2) is largely down to their muscle-bound frontman David McMahon, whose voice evokes everyone from the previously-mentioned bespectacled national treasure to Robbie Williams and Fine Young Cannibals’ Roland Gift. He’s even a decent rapper, so far as I could make out: the Wheatsheaf’s sound system turned most of his spoken output into so much aural sago. Still, he has presence, range, control and strength and with all that, I expect Outcry to get a good deal bigger in the future. One last thing: a cabal in the audience (I’m guessing MAGS: Mums and Girlfriends) applauded through the intros as if it really were Elton or Robbie up there rather than four nervous newbies from North Oxon. Sweet.

Following the stampede of wallies to the exit was the appearance of the excellent Jake Morley, the genius I was telling you about. He’s an acoustic guitar player and singer, but that ain’t the half of it. By laying the guitar on his lap, fretting and picking at the speed of light and giving the body a thump every half a second or two, he can effectively provide rhythm, lead guitar and percussion, and thus create, all on his own, a sound world that would need three mere mortals to achieve. He sings rather well too, sometimes sounding like a more human Newton Falkner.

All this talent is wedded to a winningly self-deprecating personal style (introducing one of his tracks as ‘a gay little love song’) and some hummable tunes, with the ambivalent love song to London, ‘This City’ being a standout. I’d hope to see him on Jools Holland within the year. A final thought: in this recessionary era, the most secure job in England must be Jake’s guitar maker. He does give it a fearful belt.

Then We Take Berlin were good to their word and brought an army of fans, most of whom caught most of Jake Morley. This created a slight nervousness in the headlining act, the lead singer wondering how they were going to top what they’d just heard. To be honest, they didn’t have much of a hope, purveying a pretty basic brand of indie pop, at its best combining the shambling energy of the Libertines with yelpy vocals rather in the mould of Dive Dive’s Jamie Stuart. They have some decent, fun tunes: ‘Forever Endeavour’, for example, sounded like above-par Kaiser Chiefs, although the constant changes of drum pattern prevented the tune from ever being in danger of rocking. ‘Wednesday’ was amiable yob rock, played with a solidity and conviction missing from their Myspace demos. A not unpleasant experience all round, but there was nothing to grab you by the lapels and demand your imminent return.