Once again, London's Borderline is packed to the gills on a Wednesday night for some serious 70's inspired classic rock. Tonight it's the turn of Ireland's mighty The Answer, a band more familiar with bigger venues than this, and the lucky few inside the venue tonight are in for a treat at this intimate gig to launch the release of their new DVD '412 Days Of Rock 'n' Roll'.

The Answer are one hard working band, and those 412 days spent on the road, many of which were spent warming up the hordes of AC/DC fans at various stadiums throughout the world on the 'Black Ice' tour have paid off, as the band ooze class and professionalism as they rip thought the set tonight. 'Sometimes Your Love' kicks off proceedings in fine style, the sound is loud (very loud) and clear and the band are relaxed and on top form.

In Cormac Neeson, the Answer have a front man who has charisma in bundles with a voice to match. His Irish blarney charms the crowd, especially during the rather funny introduction to 'Evil Man', and Neeson's voice has to be the loudest to come out of Northern Ireland since Ian Paisley last had a rant.

The set is a nice mixture of material from 'Rise' and 'Everyday Demons' with the likes of 'Come Follow Me', 'Too Far Gone', 'Into The Gutter' and 'Under The Sky' all rocking the crowd up into a frenzy at the front. In fact there's a fair bit of crowd surfing going on from one or two at the front, which you don't see too often at the Borderline.

With a new album to arrive sometime later this year, it's also great to hear a handful of tracks from it as a taster of what to expect. On the evidence of what was on offer tonight, it should be a cracker. At times during the set tonight, The Answer sounded so much like Led Zep that you may have thought you'd gone through a time warp and ended up round the corner in Wardour Street's old Marquee club in 1969, and some of the new album stuff echoes that. 'Waste Your Tears', the last of the new ones to feature tonight, and closing the set, even gets a bit of a crowd sing along going- an impressive response from a crowd that probably hadn't even heard the song before.

The band return to the stage and launch into a version of Rose Tattoo's 'Rock'n'Roll Outlaw', recorded for inclusion on the new DVD/CD. Fair play to the guys for paying tribute to one of the greatest and most underrated Rock'n'Roll bands in hard rock history, and it's a decent version too, but not quite up to the standard of the original. 'Preachin' and 'Memphis Water' are the final two encores before the band call it a day to a fantastic reception.

With two highly rated albums and a world tour with AC/DC under their belts, The Answer are poised to make that next step up. With the new material on display tonight, it looks they are armed with the right tools to do it.

Photo Kudos; Dawn Irwin