Roll up, roll up, for the very first mariachi/punk rock gig on a boat anywhere in the UK, and as it's a Bank Holiday Monday we'll even make sure you all have a few surprises to take home as memories of the occasion.

Surprise number one then, is just how full the USS Thekla (c/o Matt Caughthran) is at doors opening, ready for the arrival of The Bronx full on mariachi alter egos. The place is literally packed solid by the time the happy troop march out onto the stage at the ungodly hour of just past 7:30 dressed in full charro suits and ready to turn Bristol Beach (also c/o Matt Caughthran) 'coco loco' for the next thirty minutes or so. The fact the guys can do this quite so brilliantly is testament to the quality of the musicians on stage. This is not some comedy homage to mariachi music this is done with feeling and sincerity. So when musical truth after truth is delivered to a reverential hush, you know the guys must be doing something right. 'Cell Mates', 'Litigation' and 'Holly' all sashay their way out of the speakers like the perfect soundtrack to a night on a sweaty boat, now if only our destination were Mexico eh guys?

With very little chance of a breather (we were on club night timescales here again tonight folks) we're soon into surprise number two of our night, which was The Ghost Of A Thousand. Quite how I have managed not to have heard this band before tonight still has me scratching my head in bemusement. You see The Ghost Of A Thousand live are quite simply fucking brilliant. The thirty odd minutes we have in the pleasure of their company is one of the most incendiary introductions I've had to a band in 2010. Not knowing any of the band's songs only added to the pleasure of discovering them, as 'Left For Dead' with its "strike one, strike two" refrain and 'Knees, Toes and Teeth ' with its "fuck the new romantics" polemic galvanised my support quicker than Big Jeff could scramble onstage for the set's cataclysmic finale. I'm guessing I may have lumped The Ghost Of A Thousand rather naively in with the host of fringe/screamo bands that polluted the UK not so long ago, so to discover a band who dress like postmen on the pull from the 1980's and sound like the UK's answer to Refused was perhaps the highlight of my night...choice.

The handclap intro tape that heralds the arrival of tonight's headliners is something akin to those minutes applause you get at football grounds these days, it demands something to celebrate and tonight The Bronx are here to be adored. It also seems something has really got Matt Caughthran's back up tonight, as midway through his band's caustic forty minute set the charismatic frontman launches into a tirade against the UK club scene that sees his band leaving the stage before he should even be thinking of limbering up ready to entertain us. The resulting rendition of 'Shitty Future' is something like a scene from Brian Yuzna's cult eighties flick 'Society' as the packed dance floor seemingly moves as one to the sway of the river below it. Then again, when you have a set list that boasts such tracks as 'White Tar', 'Rape Zombies' and 'False Alarm' you'd be forgiven for thinking that Matt has always had more than just a slight beef with the world around him. And don't we just love him for it.

There is no encore tonight, as we don't have enough time, instead the band rip through 'Knifeman', 'History's Stranglers' and 'Heart Attack America' at which point the third and final surprise of the night was revealed. The fact it had taken the usually permanently airborne frontman this long to actually stage dive for the first time tonight is probably just waiting for a McWhirter to verify it as a new world record in self preservation.

Bands as special as The Bronx really do only come along once in a musical lifetime, so make sure you are one of those lucky enough to catch them on their current European tour which lasts into June...No excuses now, just get a fucking ticket and live your life.