PAUL WELLER/FUN LOVIN’ CRIMINALS/RUN DMC

(The Point, Dublin)

LOOSE AS the proverbial goose, no doubt due to a strict diet of jazz fags, Huey, Fast and Steve amble onstage, inhale, then tear into ‘Bombin’ The L’ from Come Find Yourself, and suddenly Dublin seems that little bit less uptight.

The Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ brand of hoodlum wha-fuckness is impossible to resist, kind of like watching the Stones (circa 1975) wrestling with Black Grape in a Florida Holiday Inn. Certainly Huey is the new housewives’ favourite, the all-American son of Frank, Elvis and De Niro in Mean Streets, or a Puerto Rican Paddy with enough rogue charm to sweet-talk Mary Harney into scoring him a hunk of skunk in the French Quarter of any port town.

They had me worried though; ‘Love Unlimited’ isn’t exactly single of the year, and the bulk of the new songs reinforce rather than revamp the Criminal agenda; all clipped hip-hop beats, smokily relaxed raps and BB King licks. But there are crucial departures, not least a new Memphis/Latino shuffle, and the paranoid slow-burner ‘We’re All Very Worried About You’. Another fresh cut, ‘Big Night Out’ (“I got a supermodel on my ‘d’”), cracks even itself up, veering from itchy’n’scratchy beatbox blues to southern fried country at the drop of a dog-tag.

These Criminals may be the product of a rough environment, but ancient ideals like musicianship and performance values are high on their agenda. For sure, the hits hit the spot, including an awesome ‘Scooby Snacks’ and a particularly jumpy ‘The Fun Lovin’ Criminal’, the latter featuring Fast juggling blues harp and trumpet without ruffling his shiny suit. Cool.

Paul Weller, on the other hand, doesn’t make it look nearly as easy. Watching the Modfather sweat through his 70-minute set put me in mind of Boxer, the hapless nag from Orwell’s Animal Farm, whose answer to all ills was simply to work harder. Mind you, Weller’s far too canny and resilient to end up in the knackeryard. Okay, so his band can sometimes resemble refugees from a Lenny Kravitz convention, but when the songs match the shapes, like on the mighty ‘Sunflower’ (whose ‘The Wind Cries Mary’ coda illustrates that when Weller steals, at least he steals from the best), there’s plenty to admire.

And while Well-’Ard often performs with all the grim determination of a man picking spuds on a frosty morning, he does possess a gratifyingly cutting guitar style. Certainly ‘The Changingman’ bites like a barracuda, and ‘Wild Wood’ is one of his most finely judged moments, a reverie-ential walk through the Traffic and into the trees.

But ultimately, Weller’s more tradesman than visionary, and one sometimes wishes he’d fashion his wares for the Louvre rather than the Ideal Homes Exhibition. The prevailing air of men at work is reinforced by the arrival of Noel Gallagher and his carnivorous Gibson, further proof, if any were needed, that the two have been sucking on the same Small Faces, as well as fishing drummers from the one gene pool.

Diehards will doubtless question my nit-picking, and this was a solid and substantial show, but I must exercise reasonable doubt.

By the time Run DMC (possibly the only men on the planet to wear more Adidas than the Gallaghers) hit the house, an hour has elapsed, and the combo have to put in some serious work in order to inspire the flagging hordes, fighting a late start and a low volume level. It takes 15 minutes and a couple of hit singles to do it, but they do get there, helped in no small way by a rowdy ‘It’s Tricky’. After that, it’s pretty plain sailing.

So, triumph rudely snatched from the jaws of humdrummery. Good night, all.

• Peter Murphy