Undertaking a 1000 mile round trip to another country to see one of your all-time favourite bands only for them cancel on you isn't many people's idea of fun but that's the way it happened when this reviewer went to see the Queers in Rotterdam a couple of years ago. Turns out I should have just sat tight as the venue for tonight's show is but a ten minute journey from my flat. Sod's Law, I guess.

Arriving at Barfly, it's apparent that this is a fairly low-key gig. Aside from it being upstairs, where the terminally underappreciated play on a makeshift stage, the band set up with very little fuss and take the floor absent the usual greeting of "We're the fuckin' Queers, motherfuckers!"

Any notions that this low-key attitude may manifest itself in the music are immediately dispelled as Joe and the boys launch into "Tamara's A Punk" with great gusto. Then, Ramones-style, it's straight into the pure pop-punk heaven of "No Tit" and "Like A Parasite", high octane but tight and punchy.

As the set evolves and a few Wimpy-era songs are dusted off ("Kicked Out of the Webelos", "I Like Young Girls", "I Spent the Rent"), it becomes clear this is something of a greatest hits showcase, if such a term can be applied, and at least one track from every album is performed; all wheat, no chaff.

The band continue rattling through the classics, "Granolahead" and "I Only Drink Bud" among them, with minimal respite, completely belying Joe's advancing years. If it's true that you're only as old as you feel then given the energy levels expended by King Queer, he's in his early twenties at most.

The evening is rounded off in traditional fashion with a rendition of "This Place Sucks" and, having seen a couple of enthusiastic young Queers fans ejected for some harmless stage invasions, there's some truth in that as regards Barfly. Rumour has it the band have been using this tour to record a new live album. On the evidence of this show, that record will knock the very average "Live in West Hollywood" into a cocked hat.

The Queers website