A massive guest queue is snaking down Charing Cross Road. Red Snapper, it seems, are the new Roni Size - the dance act that no coffee table should be without.
Which might explain how a band without hit singles or advertising campaigns has sold out such a large venue - albeit after supporting the Prodigy and Massive Attack. Maybe it's a symptom of our waning attention span: wanting to dance, certainly, but dance to ten things at once so we don't get bored.
Considering Red Snapper's ferocious schizophrenia, that outcome's unlikely. One minute topless guest junglist, MC Det, is rapping and rumbling savagely through 'The Sleepless' like Audioweb gone disco, then double-bassist Ali Friend injects a bit of acid jazz into vicious, barking drum'n'bass before hip-hop, techno and punk all take their turn. Yet when the barefooted ex-Life's Addiction vocalist, Alison David, takes the mic, plunging into a nightmarish world of average trip-hop, all is lost.
Combining the overlapping sounds of a DJ with the sweaty, smoky intimacy of a gig is the idea. But if you want more than a dance, Red Snapper have little to offer. Just shiny surfaces and no feeling.
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