Live Report: The Scratch turn Electric Picnic into one giant mosh pit

"The Scratch are gold." A recording tells the crowd as the band emerges.

Then the cajóns (box drums) pound like a heartbeat, and guitar feedback hangs in the air. The instrumental introduction does all the talking. Before long, the band demand it themselves: "We need you jumping!" They jump too.

'Pullin' arrives with vocals so urgent and ferocious they're almost nonsensical. Somehow, through the distortion and sheer volume, those unmistakable Dublin accents still cut through.

It's immediately clear that this is going to be a concert for the senses - perhaps even a sensory overload. When the music quietens, the band's harmonies create genuinely beautiful melodies before everything once again descends into screaming chaos.

Cathal McKenna abandons his stool for the drum set, headbanging as his hair flies around him. He's moving with such intensity that you wonder how he's managing to hit every note.

"Open up the dance floor!" they demand during 'Pull Like A Dog.' The crowd obeys. A huge circle forms in the centre of the tent, dancers pushing and shoving their way around it, throwing themselves into the music with enormous grins. Nobody seems remotely concerned about personal space anymore.

The Scratch

Behind them, visuals of a wolf running and snarling flash across the screens, perfectly capturing the wild, rabid character of the performance. The pounding drums briefly soften before exploding again.

The set has barely begun, but the urgency is already overwhelming. By 'Cheeky', adrenaline is coursing through Rankin's Wood. The song tells the story of a wild, hard-drinking regular and his beloved geansaí, with references to 'Champagne Supernova' thrown into the mix.

The band describe it as being "cheekier" than Anne Doyle reading the Six One news in a pair of trackies; they're not wrong.

For all the apparent chaos, there is an impressive musical intelligence underneath it. The Scratch are a metal band, but their riffs repeatedly begin to resemble the melodies and structures of traditional Irish tunes.

At points, the set feels like one enormous jam session, constantly shifting between different levels of intensity. Yet every member maintains the same look of stern concentration.

The Scratch

"How are we feeling now?" they ask before launching into a spoken word chant. The answer is obvious.

Dedicating 'Glad Rags' to the metalheads in the tent, they bark the song into existence. There is something distinctly theatrical about The Scratch's performance, but not because every movement feels meticulously rehearsed. Quite the opposite.

The entertainment comes from the rawness. The energy is almost terrifying, and that's why it's so good.

'Mother of God' brings another surprise: bursts of pyro erupt as almost the entire tent transforms into a mosh pit. The crowd swigs their drinks, throws their heads back and disappears completely into the music. Crowd surfers begin passing overhead. Bodies collide.

And somehow, the music keeps getting heavier.

The Scratch

'Old Dog' keeps the momentum going before an 'Ace of Spades' cover provides one of the night's biggest crowd-pleasers. The Motörhead classic feels perfectly at home in The Scratch's hands - fast, loud and gloriously filthy.

They launch straight into 'Another Round', the final song of the night, and the tent erupts one last time. People have clearly abandoned any hope of remaining clean, dry or upright.

The Scratch have taken the instincts of Irish traditional music - the communal singing, the rhythmic drive, the session mentality - and dragged them through a wall of distortion.

Maybe they're Ireland's answer to traditional heavy metal. Or maybe they're simply The Scratch. Either way, Rankin's Wood won't be forgetting them anytime soon.

The Scratch