Kate Loves Bryan

The Bowery Electric is a fine venue, but for people who like to take pictures of shows it has one problematic feature: the blue and red stage lights that illuminate the performers create lighting conditions that are not kind to digital cameras. The end result is usually intensely blue, blown out and almost posterized. This could actually be a blessing for people who like to watch shows, although I haven't noticed much of a reduction in the number of people optimistically pointing their smartphones at the tiny stage.

We went along the other night to see Music for Enophiles, a capable and always enjoyable Brian Eno tribute band, and stayed on to watch the headliners, another local tribute band named Kate Loves Bryan. It might be more accurate to describe them as a supergroup: first, because all the performers seemed to be from other more or less well-known bands, and second because of the sheer number of people involved: I think fourteen in all, far too many to fit on the stage all at once.

Kate Loves Bryan is a double-tribute band, performing songs by both Kate Bush and Roxy Music. They proved to be great fun – musically very competent, and with a great collective sense of style and showmanship. There were dancers, and musicians, and at least a half-dozen different vocalists, who took turns singing different songs. A woman in a white suit and spats delivered a note perfect version of "Virginia Plain". It wasn't quite the same as seeing Kate Bush or Roxy Music, but it was a lot of fun.

"They were good," M. said later. "But none of them was Bryan Ferry."

"Agreed," I said. "Except the woman in the white suit. She might have been Bryan Ferry."

"Right," she said.

In the morning, editing my pictures, I discovered an unexpected bonus. The Bowery Electric's hellish red-and-blue lights, which do such terrible things to color photos, turn out to yield gorgeous black-and-white images, with deep, rich blacks and brilliant, silky whites.