RICHARD BELL is too cool for school as he enjoys the bands on offer at You!Me!Dancing! at the O2 Academy.

GETTING down with the kids can sometimes be a difficult thing to get right.

Knowing what to wear, knowing that ‘washed’ is actually slang for ‘lame’, and indeed knowing what bands you should be listening to; it all takes much more effort than simply watching a couple of episodes of Skins.

It came as a pleasant surprise then at this week’s You!Me!Dancing! to find that we were right there with the kids, on the front line of new music, dancing along with them.

Of course, it helps that tonight’s event has been moved to the O2 Academy because their over-14s licence really comes in handy.

I’ve never seen Y!M!D! so populated with the underage, and luckily they’re not following the Regal’s methods of herding those of us that are old enough to drink into some small room separate to the main event to do our drinking (in a desperate attempt I’ll bet to make sure we don’t corrupt the young with our alcohol induced ways).

No, tonight we occupy the small room of the Academy that later that very night will play host to Room 101, and the alcohol is regulated by good sense rather than segregation.

Tonight plays host not only to those of us lucky enough to be able to use the bar for alcohol, as well as impressionable and excitable teens, but to an exceptional line up of bands too, capped off by the excellent Data. Select. Party. - a band who have honed their style through years of hard work on the live music circuit and who, at last, are beginning to take their first teetering steps on the stairwell of success.

The other bands tonight are equally up to scratch, putting in great performances even if everyone seems to be relying a little too much on the example Oxford’s own Foals have set.

The exception is local troupe Collisions and Consequences who frantically thrash about like a demented Arcade Fire.

In a way it’s a shame that Y!M!D! has found no regular home since leaving the Regal, but in truth I almost like it better this way, a few times a month in a different venue around Oxford; sometimes at the Wheatsheaf, sometimes at the O2, sometimes the Jericho Tavern and sometimes at The Cellar.

It makes you feel as though you’re attending an awesome party that you’ve been cool enough to go to.

What’s really great about You!Me!Dancing! however is not the selection of bands on offer, but rather the feeling that you’re finally listening to something fresh, with the promoters doing everything they can to bring us cutting edge music from around the country and indeed outside it, with latest Pitchfork favourites the Pains of Being Pure at Heart playing their Jericho Tavern date in May.

By putting such a huge amount of effort in to bring us the best, the brightest and the freshest talent in the alternative music world, suddenly being down with the kids isn’t such a difficult thing to do anymore.

In fact, all you need do is make sure you’re attending You!Me!Dancing!