Hanging out at a snooker hall and drinking cans of coke, Dalston’s midweek crowd are braving the youth club connotations to catch two bands that are currently buzzing with the ferocity of a dozen beehives.

Theme Park are five Londoners who seem like pleasant guys if their music is anything to go by. It’s all swing, strut and fun, so much so you expect a lounge-suited crooner to drift past and a little twinkle off the teeth from lead singer Miles Haughton. Their eclectic guitar jangle recalls Golden Silvers at their more lethargic. Although it feels a bit samey after a while, they have a pleasing habit of introducing little, intricate guitar figures that mesh together and become something sparkly and warm by the end. Toes, despite initial misgivings, inevitably start tapping, and Dalston is won over.

It’s even busier by the time Summer Camp, newly-married duo Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey begin. Starting acoustically on some stairs at the back of the hall, they work their way through the crowd to the stage during their opening song, to join a drummer who obviously planned ahead. They have ample bombast, Sankey’s voice booming out the choruses, and Warmsley’s synth and guitar parts adding a sort of menace to their romantic passion. It gels nicely on occasion but sometimes feels a bit forced, somehow not quite the sum of its parts and trying slightly too hard to reach out to your heartstrings, at the expense of the music itself. Tonight, the best option seems to be to just enjoy their engaging emotional pull. Threat of snooker-related teenage angst memories optional.

Martin Cordiner