Here’s a band who are finally going places. I’d seen them in supporting roles a couple of times and always been impressed. Stepping out on their own, they sound braver and bolder than ever. The Big Moon could make it big.

Date: November 1, 2016

Venue: Bodega

Juliette Jackson, lead singer of London all-girl quartet The Big Moon, had an epiphany when she saw The Palma Violets play. She wanted that lifestyle, to be part of a gang-type band.

Then she saw gonzo-indie nut-jobs Fat White Family and immediately went home and started writing songs.

Joined by her friends Soph Nathan (guitar, vocals), Celia Archer (bass, vocals) and Fern Ford (drums), they’ve fast become a formidable band.

They’ve played second fiddle at the Bodega a few times – six, Juliette reminisces, their favourite venue naturally – but they’ve now made the transition from support band to main act, and it’s not difficult to understand why.

They’re no typical girl band. They play a mash up of slacker, low slung indie that is usually reserved for the boys and possess a pop-punk ethos that makes them sound like Hole having more fun than Hole ever did.

The wonderfully upbeat Silent Movie Suzie, which is like mid-90s also-rans Sleeper climbing the charts, starts the gig (If you haven’t already, check out the song’s NSFW Barbie-hath-no-fury-like-a-doll-scorned video), while fellow single Nothing Without You follows and borrows heavily from Sheffield indie girls The Long Blondes.

“This is a Madonna song”, announces Juliette, before their slacker-punk version of Madge’s Beautiful Stranger.

On Cupid, they sound like Pavement re-imagined by Lena Dunham of Girls fame; a sound that says “Whatever dudes” and blows raspberries in the faces of commercial pop. But it’s the simplicity of its “oohhhhhh-ooh-oohhh-er” chorus that plonks it firmly among the pop elite.

There’s a breathless, playful euphoria to their pop songs. Set closer ‘Sucker’ is an intensely stirring rattle that’s earned them comparisons to everyone from PJ Harvey to The Slits.

They may have been influenced by the aforementioned bands, but The Big Moon are on their way to eclipsing them all.