by Lynn Hann

WHY A city the size of Nottingham should not have had a large venue for so long remains a mystery. Opinion is divided between blaming the attitude of successive councils - the apathy of the audience or simply the close proximity of established concert halls in neighbouring cities.

Whatever the causes - the problem seems to have been "Solved with the opening of the 2000 capacity Rock City" - a kind of layered club affair with disco and electronic games on the ground floor - bars and stage upstairs and smoke filled spotlights spinning over an ample dance floor.

Orange Juice - all grins - fringes and Glaswegian accents - are endearing themselves with their taut and tingling type of pop. But this is an Undertones audience and at first sight it seems as if the group itself has gone forth and multiplied to the point of peopling the crowd almost entirely with excited clones. Everywhere you look there are the shapeless haircuts - the indiscriminate jumble of jumpers - track shoes and T-shirts that are the trademarks of Derry's dozens of pure teen pop melody and romance. And by their second number the floor is already softly palpitating underfoot - the air is sticky with diffused sweat and the audience are jostling each Other in an ungainly - appreciative dancing.

The Undertones themselves - newly signed off from Sire and labeless while I write - have never looked better - and they appear to have reached a plateau that suits them perfectly. The image is the same: five youths who look barely out of an awkward adolescence veering between the acutely love sick and the sly - self-deprecating humour that shows on stage as well as in send-up songs like "More Songs About Chocolate And Girls".

Because The Undertones were fashionless in the first place they don't sound dated. In fact - they've now acquired an easy assurance that's - commanding but keeps their close connection with the crowd. The dour demeanour - and dry wit of Mickey Bradley ("This is the head of EMI - he wants us to sign up with him. No it's not - it's Seymour Stein looking for his money back" he observes as an eager punter scales the stage) are a cool foil for Feargal Sharkey's leprechaun ambivalence which changes from compulsive clowning to the sort of soul singing that balances a besotted anguish on the exposed edge of that extraordinary voice - concentrating fierce emotion in his slight - unlikely frame.

Musically too there's been a seamless transition - with the songs from the last album replacing the early material in the audiences' affections. Some of the punkier creations now sound crude compared to the dazed - heightened intensity of something like 'Hypnotised' or the clever pacing and sharp twists of tune in 'Wed Week'.

It all makes for a show of a uniformly high quality that's punctuated with sharp and heady high-spots. By -Girls That Don't Talk' the dance floor is flailing spectacularly - Mickey Bradley is ordering off a stage invasion like a reasoned - authoritative schoolmaster - and Feargal is perched on a speaker high above the scene - surveying the chaos with wicked - composure.

In The Undertones own words - it's never too late to enjoy dumb entertainment And - as is the case with masters of most kinds of craft. The Undertones achieve something that's not nearly so simple as they make it - seem.