CRASH TEST DUMMIES / JACK ROBERTS (National Stadium, Dublin)

WHEN YOUR chosen support is a cross between an off-off-key Tom Waits, an arthritic Joe Cocker and an imbecilic Les Dawson, the only way is up. Jack Roberts are a motley bunch of complete chancers with a frontman who confuses passion with pomposity and ends up sounding like a hopeless and helpless drunk. That kind of thing I can get any night in Rathmines – I certainly don’t need to toddle along the South Circular Road for it. ’Nuff said.

On the other hand Brad Roberts and Co. peddle a far different elixir, one that I’d more than cross the road to get an earful of again. Armed with a swathe of literate references and a razor-sharp sensibility for all things ironic or even vaguely rib-tickling, Roberts (for after all, he is the Crash Test Dummies) fed us a steady diet of his own personal musings on everything from phlegmy outbursts and what that might mean in a doctor’s consulting rooms, to the need for haircuts in heaven and other unlikely tales.

The bass baritone is to be heard nowhere else. For a guy who’s almost vertically challenged he sure knows where to place his larynx (i.e. roughly 4" below his crotch) and he placed it smack bang in the middle of a rake of outtakes of that selfsame album that’s deified them, God Shuffled His Feet, with pristine effect. A nifty guitarist himself, he was superbly foiled by the magic Benjamin Darvill on mandolin and a virtual orchestra of harmonicas.

‘Afternoons and Coffeespoons’ careered through the hall, carrying the majority of the clear-skinned 15 year olds in the audience off into virginal orgasms that they only emerge from with gentle persuasion (and the promise of lollipops at the door).

‘Swimming In Your Ocean’ and ‘Two Knights And Maidens’ brought the temp back down, but as soon as the opening chords of ‘MMM MMM MMM MMM’ were struck it was a free for all full frontal assault on the collective subconscious, and no prizes for guessing what everybody’d be humming on the way home.

The Crash Test Dummies know what they’re about. They’ve got a sound that’s purely theirs, patented and unavailable for hire. They just might decide to tickle our ribs and finger our subconscious for a while longer next time round.

• Siobhán Long