Puressence so deserved to be megastars. I’d fallen in love with their music through several EPs and singles via one of the guys who worked at the record store with me who was already a fan. So when i found out they were playing The 100 Club, on Oxford Street, I grabbed a couple of tickets and Melissa and I headed down after work on this Tuesday evening.

This was a kind of ‘album’ launch in some ways I guess, as their debut self-titled album was launched in April ’96 – although I’m not sure it was actually available this early in the month.

Before Puressence though was Auratone – whom sadly I have no information on but were incredibly good live. They’d have held their own with most bands and really impressed me, but seem to have vanished into the void of the mid-90’s and sharing their name with an apparently popular sound system has made it impossible for me to track anything down about them – if indeed info exists out there…

Puressence from the first moment they hit the stage were captivating and brilliant. The best band, by a mile, I’d seen in a long time and this performance is one of the best I’d see live that year – and beyond. They were phenomenal and their debut album should have spawned hit after hit – if only they’d gotten some radio play and exposure. It is such a shame that, for whatever reason, they didn’t make it bigger than they did – and their second album did spawn a couple of Top 40 tracks – as well as making it to #36 in the album charts.