Sorry Gold Panda and Razmataz Lorry Excitement. I didn’t mean to miss your warm up sets to Three Trapped Tigers, but thanks to that annoying thing called work it meant I could only catch the headliners.

Upon arriving, the venue was fairly packed with punters sitting in the darkened corners waiting patiently for the main act to begin. A lot of people assume that a band who have an electronic edge to them play live, it’s going to be a case of a someone hunched over a laptop. Or if they’re lucky, someone may bring a Korg along to mindlessly play with.

For the crowd who attended the gig, that wasn’t the case. Instead, it appeared that Three Trapped Tigers had captured and killed a robot. Upon doing so, they then gutted its inside to use as instruments. The stage at the Head of Steam was covered in wires, keyboards, samplers, other complicated looking equipment and, for the love it, a laptop buzzing away at the back.

The band intended to deliver a live show that you’d expect from the so called conventional sort of guitar act. We’d actually get to see the three piece physically playing the music they’ve created on releases EP1 and EP2. This is what the tour was all about – the launch of EP2 – and Newcastle was the first city among many in the country and across Europe to see the band play live.

Previous reviews of Three Trapped Tigers has likened them to Battles, Lightning Bolt and even the mysterious Aphex Twin. From those comparisons alone, it was clear that a night full of energy from the headliners was to be expected. No vague stage movements and sulking were to be expected at all. As presumed, the set started with a bang as they launched in to opening track 6 from EP2.

Starting whilst some of the crowd were still lulling and chatting at the back, the opening synth chord echoed round the ever increasing sweatbox and drew people closer. Teasing the audience with layered sounds the energy soon kicked in when drummer Adam Betts relentlessly provided the beats. All night he did this and didn’t need the assistance of a backing track to help watchers believe he was the sole individual for pumping out 150bpm for the duration of the set.

Many of the songs were fresh to myself but sounded like they could have been done by Squarepusher. Is this a bad thing? Some may say yes, but I say no. Tom Jenkins is the man behind Squarepusher and can either produce mesmerising songs or experimental rubbish. When he plays life, it is either with a session band that’ll quite likely have to work alongside him, or failing that, a set off a laptop. With Three Trapped Tigers, playing live gives them more freedom to change things around and try out different things.

As more songs were played, the crowd responded better and were soon moving around in the compact space they were in. Overall, there were no faults in the bands performance. Each member worked hard on stage to bring their own bit to the gig and moved intensely round stage. It could be simplified if they wanted, but then they’d lose the performance edge of it which added to the overall set.

The only downer on the night was at the end when was a fight broke out between the DJ on the night and a member of the audience. This seemed to be caused by an innocent comment made by keyboard/synth player Tom Rogerson. Explaining he was from Ipswich, he mentioned the passing of Sir Bobby Robson. For some reason this didn’t go down well with a few members of the crowd. Why? I’m slightly unsure, but once the last song was played, the DJ ran to a mic and had a pop at someone for booing a comment that wasn’t offensive at all. It all ended in fisticuffs from there.