I suppose this writeup is making Friday's show still relevant, so I may as well put up the post that the demands of wedding-attendance preempted.

First, it was great, and you should check out Kyle's amazing photos of the show.

Second, the two bands I saw — Middle Distance Runner and Georgie James — both struck me as having a similar quirk: dueling songwriters. It's not an uncommon phenomenon, certainly, but it seemed particularly obvious in these two cases.

I don't know much about MDR, having had to leave their Unbuckled appearance early, but it was pretty easy to see that their songs come in two flavors. First, catchy pop that occasionally aspires to Bends-era Radioheadishness, and which is strangely lacking in bridges (seriously guys, key changes: they're good for what ails ya). Second, garage/stomp/Kings of Leon-style rock, the kind of stuff played by shirtless dudes in jeans and mesh caps who spend a lot of time trying to shop for belt buckles without anyone noticing them doing it. I'm not a huge fan of the latter and so couldn't tell you whether MDR's take on it is particularly good or not. But I really liked the songs of type A.

Georgie James has this sort of split personality, too. John writes angular pop songs (angular — what a fantastically cliched music critic word), while Laura's melodies seem to be more about mellow, bouncy notes tumbling over one another. I like John's hooks better, but although he has a very nice voice, Laura's clearly the one with the distinctive vocals and charisma (also: she's purty). It was nice to hear them making larger (though still tentative) forays into one another's songs on their older material, but I was surprised to see how divided their styles remained.

Of course, I haven't seen the songwriting credits on their demo EP or their unreleased album, so perhaps I'm just imagining a division where none actually exists. But in my mind, at least, the band's got two distinct styles. Each one has a lot to recommend it, but I'm looking forward to hearing more stuff that capitalizes on both.

UPDATE: While you're at it, why not go check out the first song from Bullets, the newest band in the great Q & Not U diaspora. Pretty catchy, although I've gotta say that the Purple Rain screengrab may be overkill.