A bouquet of roses to Three Blind Mice, who succeeded in putting together an excellent lineup of varied but compatible acts on their first night as promoters. Dead flowers through the mail to the Port Mahon toilet attendant, who failed to note a coil of barbed wire in the toilet bowl of the gents (wouldn’t an ‘Out of Order’ sign have been sufficient?) and then compounded his error by presiding over an occupation of the same room by a posse of female physiology students who wanted to do their make-up. Let’s get to the music and banish these traumatic memories.

The combined age of Tristan & The Troubadours seemed to me in the murky Port light to be about seventy. So far so unremarkable, but you should know that there are seven of them, floppy haired hobbits enthusiastically banging percussion, scraping violins and blasting out fat organ chords. The style is hard to pin down (good), but the vocalist has obviously heard of Robert Smith, David Byrne and Win Butler, and certainly the band, with its often bombastic combination of folk instruments, spidery keyboard riffs, surges of guitar noise, and that vocal yelpiness (which will be an acquired taste for many) bring us into Arcade Fire territory-check their rather wonderful ‘Venice Ghosts’ on Myspace for a prime example. At other times in the set there lingered the aura of the after-school youth club- at one point the drummer and percussionist changed places, which demonstrates versatility, but to what effect? At the moment, I see T and the T as stem-cell talent, undifferentiated, uncommitted, but full of nervous life. What will they become?

Perhaps the next We Aeronauts, who rather despairingly admitted that ‘We’re f***ed, basically’ due to half the eight-piece folk-rock band’s taking up residence on other continents. Still, with various ringers on board they gave us a satisfying if far-from-perfect set. The strengths are in the effortless excellence of the songwriting: ‘Boatswain’s Cry’ is a worthy successor to Dylan’s ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’ as the cool person’s sea shanty of choice and ’99 Days’ was a spirited, singalong stomp with more than a nod to Mercury Rev. ‘Fleet River’ (the famous subterranean Other London River- Tom Baker’s Doctor Who once caught a salmon in it and shared it with The Venerable Bede, who adored fish) is charming on record, full of tremulous guitar atmospherics, but was on the shambolic side tonight. I hope they get their lineup sorted out soon, because songs like these are too good to lose.

Another band to recently undergo extensive re-tooling is Maria Ilett‘s. Last year, she produced an excellent little CD which was all sunny folk-pop married to subtle electronica. That’s all gone now and in it’s place is drums, guitar, sax and trumpet, as if Mark Ronson were running the show. A song like ‘Sit on the Sun’ from that record doesn’t really work with this band, as the horns drown out Maria’s low notes. In contrast, they actually improve ‘Hit the Blue’, a scuzzy little charmer on record but transformed here into an exhilarating anthem. Even better is ‘You Play These Games’ which reminds me of that long-forgotten time back when Amy Winehouse could sing. The discipline of the staccatto Motown-style horns and drumming, together with Maria’s fine voice combine to superb effect.

So, well done everyone. Good music, good turnout, well-publicised (there were three local music journalists in the audience) and free white chocolate mice to all payers. What’s not to like? Oh, I remember, the bogs. If you’re coming to the next show, best bring a bottle. An empty one.