Live at the Temple Bar Music Centre, Dublin

Carlsberg don’t do comebacks, but if they did, it would probably go a little something like this one. Some bands just deserve to be resurrected, and Kerbdog are very much one of them.
Apart from the obvious elation of their audience, there’s little in the Kilkenny outfit’s performance to suggest a seven-year absence from the live stage. Having shed guitarist Billy Dalton somewhere along the way, the prodigal sons’ performance is effortlessly streamlined, their muscular sound brimming with a newborn vitality and rage. As the elder statesmen of metal, Kerbdog were mastering the art of lurching, grandiose emo while the likes of Lostprophets were still trying to break their voices, and tonight, their Helmet/Soundgarden influenced sound pounds at the listener incessantly.
As calorific and chunky as it is, the Kerbdog sound is very much worthy of larger platforms than the sweatbox that is the Temple Bar Music Centre. Upon hearing a set filled with longtime favourites (among them ‘Dry Riser’, ‘Rewind’ and ‘Sally’), it’s hard not to wonder where exactly it all went wrong for Kerbdog. Cormac Battle himself tunes up his guitar prior to the show, having joked that the roadies are long gone. “This is a bit of a laugh, isn’t it?” he jokes mid-way through the set, offering a moment of light relief amid tonight’s breakneck proceedings. Battle in particular seems delighted to be resurrecting Kerbdog’s searing sound, and performs with appropriate vigour and vitriol (a side-effect from working down Montrose way, perhaps?)
As arguably the least deserving band of their post-grunge fate, Kerbdog have always maintained a fiercely loyal following. Tonight is very much their fans’ night, a moment of reassurance that Kerbdog aren’t quite the throwaway musical casualties that the industry might have thought they were.
With hope of Kerbdog returning to the studio very much alive, tonight is a long-promised occasion that finally came to fruition. Let’s hope they don’t leave it so long next time.

Photograph by Cathal Dawson