Not that I would consider myself a rock and roll writer — look at my photo for goodness sake, no-one's going to mistake me for one of the Ramones — but I have had my moments.

With the music still ringing in our ears, the smell of smoke still clinging to your clothes and the taste of beer roughly equal to the stabbing pain in the front of your head, it's probably not the greatest starting point for a legendary article.

And yet, as your still-asleep eyes get used to the computer screen and the blank document before you, few things loom quite as large as an early deadline.

Most of the time, when you're working for a magazine or even a paper that publishes on a daily basis, you can leave a gig review for hours, weeks and even days before you need to stroke a keyboard.

Time is crucial when it comes to formulating the kind of witty phrases, cutting ripostes and biting turns of phrase that comes with writing a review these days.

It's no good thinking of that killer line about Pavement being quite pedestrian, or a said band promising the hits but delivering an obvious anagram of that, when you're sipping a coffee five days after the article is published.

In the digital age, where newspapers are demanding blog entries pretty much as the last notes are reverberating round the venue, such things aren't possible.

Neither is getting washed, eating breakfast or doing any of the other things that are part of the average morning routine.

By this stage, the fun of the gig is well and truly over, the magic has happened and the headline act have packed up and headed for the next town.

All you have to do is convey the feeling, atmosphere and quality of the show in 350 words or less.

Sometimes it's an opportunity to blast a band for robbing you of an evening you'd otherwise have spent indoors in front of the TV.

At other times it's a scramble for superlatives as you struggle to do justice to a show which was so good it might just have changed your life.

Mostly, though, it's somewhere in between.

There is a theory that all music journalists are frustrated rock stars, well this is as close to the rock star life style as most writers will get.

The feeling of being over-tired, uncoordinated and with the Press demanding something from you is slightly different for the likes of Amy Winehouse, but the standard principle is the same.

All of this comes as a very lengthy preamble — and something of a pre-review excuse — for last night's Belsonic show in Belfast's Custom House Square, which will be online shortly...

REVIEW: The Flaming Lips at Belsonic