Tonight I found myself in the Spiegel Saloon; a medium-sized, yurt-like contraption, nestled down the back of the 7Up Winter Wonderland in Kilmainham, between the Helter Skelter and a tiny bar. It took me forty minutes to find myself there; if the directions had said The Museum of Modern Art I would have been right in. But you live and learn.

Anyway I was promised “welcome drinks” and “finger food” which sounded promising, so I sidled around the venue, intensely aware of the lack of corners in the circular tent, until I found a small pillar on which to lean. I continued in this manner for nigh on forty minutes (again) until my friend came along and procured me a mulled wine and a chair.

I partook of these until the gig had been on for several minutes, at which point I turned my attention to the stage. Several men and a woman had mounted it, dressed fantastically. There was a spiky-grey-haired cockney one with sunglasses, a long-grey-haired one with sunglasses, a small, skinny, less scary, Grace Jones lookalike with tiny leather pants, and another one.

These turned out, on future inspection (of Wikipedia) to be Larry Love, Rock Freebase, Aurora Dawn, and another one. They opened with a song I did not know, that I was not paying attention to, so I won’t mention it. They cunningly followed that with Woke Up This Morning, their mainstream hit, you might say.

It was famously featured in every episode of The Sopranos, at the start, but the audience tonight was too cool to mention it. Their version was a stripped-down, raw, slide guitar and vocal take, without the dirty bass that makes it so good to drive around and point fake guns at people at to, but I think some people in the crowd might have been doing that anyway. Without the driving.

Folsom Prison Blues was next; the singer cleverly changed the words to “I shot a man in Dublin” to ingratiate himself, or perhaps alienate us, I’m not sure. Either way it worked. He interspersed the words “Woop, woop, that’s the sound of the police” into the song, so everybody got to say woop a lot, which was pleasing.

They did a nice John Prine cover then, The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, followed by a track berating someone, possibly a friend of theirs, about no longer dancing to techno. Personally I don’t think that’s possible, unless you’re epileptic.

At this point in the gig, the former chief of staff of the IRA came on stage with a death mask of his own face, and asked for support in evading extradition to the United States, which was cheerfully given, as all he did was pass some incredibly good counterfeits, from what I hear. At this point they whipped out the drum machine. Dirty bass and free CDs all round!

As a middle finger to capitalism, the singer commanded people to steal the CD, or illegally download it, so if you read this review, and you want to check out their music, do as Larry Love commands you. The final tracks were a multi-layered, bass-driven, intense medley of noise, impelling you to procure Semtex and poitín, and cause some havoc. Afterwards I left, unsettled, knowing I had a good time, but maybe that’s what I was supposed to think…

Tanya Branagan