By Mark McKelvey
RADIO 1 illustrated fully why it is regarded as the best radio station in the world when its Northern Ireland session was broadcast live from Molly Sweeney's in Omagh last Thursday night, bringing with it two bands that you will be listening to for years to come.
With the tag of pioneers for promoting and nurturing new music for the past 50 years through the likes of the legendary John Peel, this trend is continuing into 2007 by Zane Lowe and the North's own Rory McConnell, who is one of the first to realise that musical talent exists outside the city boundaries of Belfast.
Speaking to the UlsterHerald at Molly's last week Rory said, "It is Radio 1 in Northern Ireland, people should not be expected to have to travel to Belfast all the time. Unfortunately this time we have two live bands with us and with time constraints and the amount of equipment we couldn't get a local band on the line-up, but we had been looking to make room for Omagh band, Colenso Parade.
"When we were looking at possible locations, we thought we have to go where people care about live music and Omagh stood out, as there is a lot of local music here, and I would definitely be looking to come back again to showcase that."
With no room for Colenso parade to perform live on the show, the Radio 1 DJ felt however this was a perfect opportunity to highlight this talented young Omagh band by broadcasting a recorded interview and playing their song, Don't Mind the Weather, live on air.
With half an hour remaining of the live broadcast, English three-piece Pull Tiger Tail took to Molly's stage making a pumping start with Automatic Young.
The trio have recently been touring with Razorlight and performing on the sold out NME tour and going by this performance is proof why.
What makes Pull Tiger Tail stand out from other up and coming indie bands was the variety of their music, especially the multi-faceted guitarist, who also played keyboard, who gave an extra beat by playing electric drums, provided backing vocals and even found time at one stage to swing a three foot long luminous blue glow stick above his head — who says men can't multi-task?
The show was completely stolen however by the aptly named Alloy Mental who have created a strong reputation in Belfast during the past three years and sent the 150-strong Omagh crowd into hysterics.
It would be wrong to put a specific label on their unique sound that is unlike anything else around at the moment. Let's just say they have to be seen to truly appreciate the energy and fervour the band's frontman exudes into every syllable as he gazes into the crowd with those psychedelic eyes.
A true natural mentalist, his stage exploits broke the boundaries of health and safety as he climbed the rigging, throwing away the mic, leaping into the crowd and snogging a wee blonde bird in the front row, but in a way that didn't seem contrived like other so called rock extroverts like Pete Doherty.
It was promising for Omagh as a town for Radio 1 to bring their show here with two amazing up and coming bands and let's hope they will be back again soon, this time promoting local bands with Freerider and Colenso Parade topping the bill.
