INDIE covers band Short Round say fans will have to get in early to catch their gig at the Ship this weekend as they’re expecting quite a crowd.

Drummer Dave Allen says the Southend band have gathered an impressive following and he’s expecting a packed show on Saturday.

“It is quite a small venue, which is a little bit worrying,” he says. “We want to urge people to get down early because it is going to get pretty rammed to be honest.”

The band cover classic indie songs, from Nineties Britpop to more modern fare.

Dave explains: “When we started out four years ago we found the bands that were on the scene had been around so long that we thought we’d do something different.

“A lot of the covers bands were doing the same stuff I’ve seen in pubs for years and years and years, and we wanted to go out and see something contemporary, not your old blues and Jimi Hendrix.”

He says: “We did some indie covers and they went down really well. We were surprised how well they went down.

“We do classic mid-Nineties indie stuff, all the Britpop, Blur, Oasis, but we bring it up to date with the Arctic Monkeys, Fratellis and Kings of Leon.

“We also do things like the Pigeon Detectives and heavier stuff like the Foo Fighters and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. There’s a bit of everything in there.

“Sometimes we’ll do an unusual cover song and throw in a Wings or a Michael Jackson song just to throw a curveball.”

It’s the first gig of the 2011 for the band, but they have plans to get in the recording studio in February.

“Since we’ve been together a lot of people have come up to us and said, ‘Have you recorded anything?’ “We’ve always said, ‘What would be the point?’ “You can go out and buy the original CD, but people have said, ‘No, we don’t want to. We want to hear them the way you do them.’ “We thought well, we’ll just go in to the studio for a weekend session and lay some tracks down so that people can buy it if they want to.”

Dave says the band, who are already boasting a busy diary for 2011, plan to stay local and have no ambitions to go national.

He explains: “We don’t feel we need to go further afield, we are a local band.”

Short Round play at the Ship, New Road, Old Leigh, on Saturday. Doors open at 8.30pm.Entrance is free.