There have been various secret happenings in Bristol recently. Cycle-in cinemas in former police shooting ranges. Secret supper clubs springing up everywhere. The best cocktails in town served in a building you may walk by every day without even taking a second glance.

A gig outdoors at a cricket club therefore shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. But this invite-only gig was more special than most as this was the first show from a band many of whose members are members of the same family.

Urgent Special Project played to a select audience at Flax Bourton Cricket Club, where their lead singer Tim Martin also happens to be club captain. Blessed with that rare gift of stage presence and a surprisingly gravelly voice, Tim was a consummate frontman, making up for his inability to deal with a late-outswinging cricket ball that cuts back in.

Although not a member of the Holloway or Sudworth families, who made up two-thirds of this nine-piece band, he is the lesser half of Emily Holloway, dancer, backing singer and the brains behind this band. It was in fact an email from Emily to her extended family with the subject line Urgent Special Project that gave the band their name.

Playing covers of classics such as Mustang Sally, Jailhouse Rock, Soul Man and Ring Of Fire, these were very tight and evidently well-rehearsed versions of songs that got the crowd shimmying, not just to keep warm on what was a cold evening in North Somerset.

Their set opened with Peter Gunn from the soundtrack of The Blues Brothers, a song rather brass-heavy so well-suited to a band with a trombone (Martyn Sudworth), saxaphone (Laura Sudworth) and trumpet (Ashley Keytes). Two other Blues Brothers tracks also featured in the two-part set, Gimme Some Lovin and Minnie the Moocher.

The rest of the band was made up of Holly Sudworth, who joined Emily on backing vocals and funky dance moves; Lucy Holloway on bass, whose playing was so vigorous she blistered a couple of fingers; Jo Holloway on clarinet, the third of the Holloway sister triumverate and always up for a kerfuffle; and last but not least, Ian Gilmore on drums, roped in late in the day after admitting he could play a bit while drinking with some of the other band members in the Cambridge Arms.

Top secret it may have been, but this was also top stuff from a band who had never played in public before this show. It was a special night from Urgent Special Project.