One of the most creditable aspects of these Heineken Green Spheres extravaganzas is the adventurous pairing of appropriate musical home-produce with the imported varieties. Tonight our cockles were well warmed up by the funk/punk noise-wave of local heroes Walter Mitty and The Realists. With Talking Heads and Zappa vying with more recent influences, and driven by demented front boy Niall McTeigue, they conjured an unsettling concoction with gems like ‘Lie In The Summer’, ‘Green Light Go’ and ‘Red Is The Number’. Watch them go.
The full house for Dirty Pretty Things, and the rapturous response they generated, suggests that Carl Barat has left his Libertines days well behind. But then, Dirty Pretty Things are no longer his band anyway, as he now jobshares frontal duties with second guitarist Anthony Rossomando and bassist Didz Hammond. In essence they are two bands, one whipping up bogglesome flurries of electric noise at turbo-charged tempos, then shifting gear to a less raucous Merseybeat poured through a new wave filter, with vocal harmonies to go. Playing with a cohesion and precision not exactly compulsory for the indie rock genre, they served up ‘Tired Of England’ from the new album. Live, it has more urgency than on disc, with respectful nods to Stephen Patrick. The shuffle-punk singalong ‘Plastic Hearts’ and the emotive ‘Hippy Son’, also trailers from Romance At Short Notice, nailed the new offering in two. But it wasn’t just a night out for the new material, and ‘Deadwood’ and ‘Bloody Thirsty Bastards’ were two standouts from the debut Waterloo To Anywhere. Not surprisingly, half of Limerick came to witness the triumphant ‘Bang Bang You’re Dead’, as it stomped all over Dolan’s with the zest and fury of The Jam. We came, we saw and they conquered.