Diet Cig bring the high-kicks to Alternative Escape show

The sort of band that Kat Stratford from 10 Things I Hate About You might put on a fuzzed up cassette mix, Diet Cig specialise in saccharine fuck-yous, quickly spat out love-songs, and, erm, cross-stitched fried eggs. They’re also the sort of band that need to physically do warm-up stretches before taking to the stage. No, really. Fronting the band, Alex Luciano is a little like Tigger if he was into Tiger Trap, using Noah Bowman’s bass drum as a launch pad, and spending much of the gig in mid-air.

Diet Cig’s pool of material to draw upon today might be slight - the duo have one EP - ‘Over Easy’ – along with another single, to their name so far. No matter; their rough-and-ready floor show in the corner of The Hope and Ruin today sounds more like a Greatest Hits set, and a well-honed one at that. “The turkey is tasty, just like the shit that you’re talking,” Alex lulls with a grin on ‘Dinner Date,’ a song of deliciously bizarre couplets written off the back of “the lamest date”. “I don’t have any kitchenware, but I can walk around in my underwear,” goes ‘Breathless’ – another brilliantly odd number bemoaning the annoyance of rental property. And in between songs, Alex is breathless too, (no surprise, after all that jumping!) having a casual natter to the audience about how much she enjoyed Frankie Cosmos’ set earlier in the festival, and dedicating a new unreleased song, ‘Skirt,’ to girls, trans and non-binary friends everywhere. “There are so many ladies here that rule!” she yells.

Thrashing through an unrelenting set, a pub corner becomes a improvised shredding arena, and the jumping high-kicks never cease, either. Alex legs it around the stage like a lightning-flash, using her front row as leaning posts, and grinning like a cheshire cat. Noah beams back from behind the kit, and the two egg each other on like they’re in a musical omelette-making competition. A jumping bean confetti-bundle of fun, Diet Cig stand out as one of the best bands of the weekend.