This was a gig that seemed destined never to happen. Originally scheduled for November last year, it coincided with "You're Gorgeous" crashing into the charts, meaning Baby Bird were too caught up in the media circus to be able to play the date. A couple of reschedules later, it looked as though the curse of Baby Bird playing Edinburgh had struck again, as a few days before the gig, Steven Jones broke his toe. However - trooper that he is - he decided to go ahead, although stating he would be forced into sitting down for the duration of the performance. By this time, we were past caring and just wanted to see the damn thing - he could have played lying on his back and it wouldn't have mattered. It was with some sense of relief that we entered into the venue then, knowing that it was going to happen at last.

The first noticable thing was the small crowd. By rescheduling and putting the gig off for so long, Baby Bird have shot themselves in the foot somewhat (no pun intended) . Back in November last year, the band were flavour of the month: now - and after the disappointing Ugly Beautiful album - their 15 minutes appear to have passed, a fact reflected by the low numbers. The second noticable aspect of the night was the low age of the average crowd member. "You're Gorgeous" appeared several times on TOTP, and Jones' undeniably handsome visage appeared in many magazines: all this was obviously picked up by a large number of female teens. Not a bad thing in any way, but noticeable nonetheless.

Support came from Bawl, who trotted out an unremarkable set of rather turgid indie guitar numbers, only generating interest during their last song when the drummer and the guitarist appeared to have a real and very physical fight, which ended with the drummer playing guitar and the guitarist screaming into the mike, trashing the drums and stumbling off-stage. Er, yeah...interesting. Shortly thereafter, Baby Bird appeared, Jones limping on with crutches and taking his place at the centre of his band of plumbers/session musicians. As the rest of the 'band' are so anonymous and - let's face it - ugly, the stage presence was diminished quite a bit by the fact Jones was restricted to waving his arms about. The teenage girls that made up the first two rows of the audience didn't seem to mind too much however.

Musically, Baby Bird have two styles. The first is typified by singles such as "You're Gorgeous" (understandably rapturously received) and "Cady Girl". Songs in other words. With tunes. The second type of music they play is slow, meandering and boring, sadly typified by over half the set. "Bad Shave", "Cornershop" (next single) and more: out they limped, blinking into the light, taking a few tentative steps and then went shuffling off again, leaving us completely unmoved. Perhaps it is due to the sheer breadth of output that Jones produces, but some of Baby Bird's songs are mediocre to say the least, which is a shame as when they connect, they do it brilliantly. Jones' voice is impressive (itself having two styles: deep and rich, and higher and powerful), and, when he remembers to write a chorus, the music can be damn sweeping too. Set closer - the name of which escaped me, but featuring the refrain "drugged up to the eyeballs" - is a good example of a Baby Bird song done well, and the band themselves seemed to recognise this, putting in a perfunctory performance during the poor material, and cutting a very big rug during the better stuff.

In order to maintain any success, on the evidence of this gig Steven Jones needs to focus much more, not recording every song that comes into his head. Lyrically, he has the power and musically he has the ability, but quality control is sadly lacking. Jones limping off-stage was a bigger metaphor for Baby Bird than he would wish, but an accurate one nevertheless.