Bellies Out at Sounds Like Brooklyn

By the time we got to the gig the support act had finished and the headliners were on stage. Already the lead singer was glossy with sweat, and his Lycra bodysuit was pulled down perilously low beneath the generous swell of his belly. It was hard to look away. The songs came and went, and so did the light displays and the monkey hat, but the drama of the night was concentrated in that gleaming, jiggling stomach and the rolls of Lycra beneath it. It was the same tease they play with underwear models, whose shadowed musculature draw the eyes down and promise that that pants-on situation is purely temporary. This time, however, a thousand pair of eyes were holding that bodysuit up, searing it in place.

A few years back I watched Gossip play Bestival on the Isle of Wight: another mesmerising Lycra and lyrics combination. It was at the time when Beth Ditto was the UK media's darling, and here, yet again, the only thing standing in the way of control was a pair of pour-on leggings and a lot of sequins.

We talk about rock stars being larger than life, and there's something quite magical when they actually are. Everyone wants a piece of you, and there's more to go round.

But God bless that Lycra - the unsung support act of the year.