It's fifteen minutes from showtime and I am standing in a rather over-crowded cloakroom with The Collectable Few. "I'd have preferred the hotel over the road," opines chief crooner Tarek, but nonetheless here we are. Drawn from a range of exotic locations from Philadelphia to Oxford, the band are comprised of seasoned pros who have been gigging for the best part of a decade. Their current incarnation, formed in 2007, is bringing their raffishly raucous riffs to hotspots all over the capital. We were able to collect them all for some pre-show chat.

DP: Have you ever had an on-stage disaster?

Tarek: Nothing too embarrassing but a few years ago I passed out on stage. Let's just say I'd been having too much of a good thing.