Mercury, the world and the whole bloody universe!

20 minutes to get ready. A further 20 minutes waiting for my housemate, Lucy, to get ready - as is always the case before a night out - and we're finally set for a night of falsetto yelps and indie beats. If you've never heard of ∆ (or alt-J to those of us who don't talk in shape) then where the funk have you been for the past 6 months?! The glorious alt-J - Gwil, Joe, Thom and Gus (or Hugo Taylor from MIC. Spitting image I swear) - have dominated our late night airwaves with their debut album, 'An Awesome Wave', championed by everyones favourite welsh ginge, Huw Stephens. Think Mumford and Sons meets Foals with some insane glockenspiel-ing mixed in. Having missed them at Bestival this summer - damn my friends and their ignorance of alternative indie - there was no way I was missing them this time round, even if it did mean going the decidedly unknown Trinity Centre in Bristol, a community centre in, quite literally, the middle of no where.

However my preconceptions about the Trinity Centre were completely unfounded. After trawling the back streets of Bristol, we pulled up outside a 19th century church, equipped with ticket scroungers by the door, and made our way inside. I had to once again swallow my uninformed notions on this venue when I saw the heavenly intimate setting, complete with stain glass window. Now, I do have a confession to make. Thanks to Lucy's tardiness and our mutual laziness, I am ashamed to say we missed both supporting acts. I was especially sad to have missed Liverpudlian folkies, Stealing Sheep. The genius behind that song from one of the 'Hollyoaks' adverts a few months ago. Probably one of the only redeeming features of that drag of a soap. Their music choice. 

And so after a couple double vodka and orange's and a few trips outside to the make shift smoking area, the light from the blue triangle at the back of the stage lit up the 400+ crowd and with plastic cups in hand, we welcomed on our headliners. We were immediately greeted by the dulcet piano chords that begin 'Tessellate', much to the delight of the gentleman stood next me. "I can't believe they're opening with Tessellate! Fucking legends..." Then came the oh so familiar tra la-ing of 'Fitzpleasure', another crowd pleaser and once again a favourite of the man next to me. The way his head popped from side to side to the beat of the tra la-ing and the beam on his face merely asserted his delight. In case you're wondering, my friend Lucy was equally as delighted with the song choice, her dance moves mimicking 'head-popping man' but to a much more exaggerated degree. Whilst doing so she also managed to acquire a bit more floor space, so I too decided to join with the group head popping, be it on a much more toned down level.

With Lucy navigating the way, we traipsed through the sea of indie kids to make our way to the front of the stage, just in time to be treated by a cover from the band - the vocals from Kylie Minogue's 'Slow' with the back beat of Dr Dre's hip hop master piece, 'Still'. Not only was this easily better than the original, but it was probably better than the cover alt-J did in the live lounge a few months ago of that Alex Clare song from the 'Windows' advert. I failed to contain my excitement at the 2 songs that followed; 'Breezeblocks', the first ever alt-J song to grace my ear drums, and 'Something Good', quite possibly the epitome of live music. I'm known to exaggerate, but even the mere thought of that song sends tiny shivers down my spine. 

Although I couldn't actually understand every word that came out of Joe's pitch perfect mouth, and I did have to pop to the toilet towards the end of the set (note to self. Go to toilet before gig), alt-J are entirely deserving of their Mercury award. I'd love to see these boys reach popularity levels higher than Joe's voice, but seeing the 2012 Mercury Prize winners perform in a church in the middle of nowhere will certainly go down as one of the best gigs ever. To all music lovers. See this band. They shall not disappoint.