The Vicars of Twiddly, headlining the always unpredictable but usually enjoyable Gappy Tooth Industries night on Saturday, are a bunch of middle aged people in cassocks, cardinal robes, miters and nun’s habits playing rather good surf music, and featuring the copious evolution of dry ice (presumably standing in for incense, and thus not infringing on the Wheatsheaf’s Health and Safety remit), ancient Hammond organs and an old boy in full Sally Army regalia blowing Christmas carols on his French horn. It’s great fun, but is probably not going to exercise the judges of the ‘NME’s Ones To Watch’ In 2011 list.

Before them came the much-gigged Above Us the Waves, labouring under the loss of their keys player (“Gone off to university, ‘cos we’re not good enough for him”, sniffed Joe Harrison, only partially in jest, I thought). AUTW remain a bit caught between superb, emotive balladry such as ‘Mind for Business, Body for Sin’ and sludgier, grungier pieces of post-rock. They’re not much cop at the latter to be honest, so it should be an easy thing to refine their set and offer a greater hit-to-miss ratio. There’s certainly plenty of talent here: Harrison is a good singer, who likes to luxuriate in long, unhurried vocal phrases, and he’s a nonchalantly superb violinist. The fiddle gives one or two numbers a flavour of Final Fantasy (try ‘The Ballad of Win and Regine’ for those that don’t know them), and as an added bonus, reduces the guitar count by one, helping to aerate the textures. They probably need to make a bit of an effort on the songwriting, flitting from idea to idea like a butterfly who’s missed its Ritalin, and the playing could be tighter, but AUTW are a work that deserves to progress.

Evokateur are back in town, having changed their name from Libelula after your reviewer suggested at their last gig that the latter sounded overly (ahem) feminine. The lineup has changed a little, though Sarah Villaraus is still front and centre, with her crystalline cooing and serpentine dancing. She sounds a little like Kylie and shares some of that pasteurized sexuality of the Australian soap star, gay icon and all round entertainer. But Sarah can cut it live.

She is backed by husband Hector, banging happily away at a Linn drum and a shaven-headed synthesizer boffin who boffins away anonymously in the background, the trio producing some pleasingly grooving electronica, notably the superb ‘Golden Glow’, with its almost obscenely suggestive bass line. On occasions, the music is a little too clinical, but they leave us with a splendidly snarky new number, showing that Evokateur can do teeth as well as curves.