It's safe to assume that Ric's Cafe has established itself as the venue of choice for anyone interested in all things live and local (with the free entry being an added bonus), and a sizeable crowd was already jockeying for position a good hour before Sugadust took to the stage for their first gig of the new year - a fair achievement when you consider it was a Wednesday night! Since undergoing the name metamorphosis from Grain to the much more user-friendly Sugadust moniker, the band has also updated its sound, and this was the first performance where they combined their trademark dark pop sounds with sequenced beats and blips. Confidence is clearly high in the Sugadust camp, and the band finally seem to have come out of their shell in the live arena. Guitarist and keyborad wiz Ken was positively bursting out of his skin and seemingly couldn't stop moving, such was the joy of getting out in front of people again. But the most noticeable change is in the stage presence of lead singer/keyboardist Evelyn. Her previously frail onstage persona is gone, replaced with a new vampish look and self-confidence that commands attention, while her amazingly powerful voice just seems to be getting stronger. Although the sequenced beats and live drums were occassionally WAY out of sync (there's a lesson in this for all drummers - when working with sequencers in a venue with poor monitoring, use headphones), the quality of the tunes and electrifying performance kept the packed Ric's crowd grooving into the night. ~Kris Swales~