Square Pegs/Joey Gavin/Jesse John Heffernan at The Sugar Club

Adrift in the limbo between Christmas and New Year’s, Hot Press wasn’t sure exactly what day it was, I was also scared to check my bank balance and doubted if I could ever fit into a pair of trousers again. I did welcome the excuse to leave my cave though, so gratefully accepted an invitation to the Sugar Club, by way of a few pints of Guinness that would make you cry in the time tunnel that is Hartigan’s on Leeson Street.

The timing of this show, billed as The Sugar Club Crimbo Bash, so close to New Year’s Eve, made for a less than capacity crowd, but those who have made the effort are enthusiastic. First up, Joey Gavin, and his space rock, indie cowboys. Ken Mooney’s inventive drums and Shane Holly’s tricky guitar are the best things here, although there are snatches of good songs buried under all those Wilco/Maximo Park/Father John Misty/Neil Young shapes, ‘Run’ in particular. Calling a song ‘Rolf Harris Is A Paedophile’ might be a case of being a mad bastard just for the sake of it, and a bit of actual stagecraft would go a long way, but they weren’t bad at all. Hot Press’ photographer, visiting from our German office, was nodding along appreciatively.

The reason most of us are here, probably, is the headline act, who are on in the middle, Square Pegs, Dublin’s own R&B super group. They’re a revolving conglomerate, built around drummer Graham Hopkins (The Frames, Glen Hansard, etc) and Colm Quearney (Pugwash, Jerry Fish, Bronagh Gallagher, etc.) on guitar and vocals. These two gents would make any band better just by being nearby, but tonight we also get Conor Brady (The Blades, everyone from Terence Trent D’arby to Toots & The Maytals) on guitar and James Delaney (Los Paradiso, Van Morrison, Chuck Berry, The Waterboys) on keyboards, as well as master jazz hero Dave Redmond on bass.

A loungey kick off with ‘Caledonia’, taken at a much more relaxed pace than the version that might be familiar from Louis Jordan or Muddy Waters, allows Delaney to go full Jimmy Smith over walking bass and brushes. Tommy Tucker’s ‘Hi-Heel Sneakers’ showcases Hopkins’ left hand as well as Conor Brady, with more pedals on the floor than a Tour De France accident, going off into an Eric Clapton/Blues Breakers freak out. ‘Trouble In Mind’ alternates between the snappy Albert Collins sound of Quearney’s telecaster and the rich humbucker warmth of Brady’s Gibson.

After runs through ‘Cocaine’ and ‘Bright Lights, Big City’, Leila Jane hops up from the crowd to lay us all out. Although she’s only about four foot nothing in her stockinged feet, her blues yell is about ten feet tall, not that this will come as a surprise to anyone who checked out her recent Decision Maker EP. Colm Quearney might, from a distance, look like the nice young fella who’s filling in for your Geography teacher Mrs O’Riley while she’s on maternity leave but the skulls on his guitar strap indicate a different profession as does the malevolent spell he weaves through Robert Johnson’s ‘Me And The Devil’ while Leila howls.

Delaney, who is really more keyboard than man, appears to have a turbo boost button attached to his instrument - when he hits it and takes off, as he does during 'C.C. Rider' (recorded by everyone, although Ma Rainey got there first, in 1924), even the other members of the band look on open mouthed. ‘Rise And Shine’, the only original song from their self-titled debut album, which is worth investment for their humid version of Albert King’s ‘Big Legged Woman’ alone, acts as a kind of centrepiece. Once the business of a couple of verses and choruses are out of the way, the song is broken down and built up again, taking cues from The Allman Brothers at the Fillmore, Television, Sonic Youth, and even a bang of free jazz, before Hopkins reins it all in by finishing the song with the closing drum pattern from The Clash’s ‘Tommy Gun’. Pick the bones out of that.

If you’re going to have a go at ‘My Babe’ then you may as well get Ireland’s answer to Little Walter, the marvellous Brian Palm, to help you out on gob iron. And, if you’re lucky enough to get him, you better ask his partner, Mary Stokes, up as well. Mary takes over the stage for Otis Rush’s ‘It Takes Time’, showing the slightly younger performers in the room how to work the boards properly. They both stay on for Billy Boy Arnold’s ‘I Wish You Would’, and Dylan’s ‘Maggie’s Farm’, for which Brady channels Mike Bloomfield at the Newport Folk Festival before it all segues into The Doors’ ‘L.A. Woman’. The Pegs then finish up on their own with ‘The Shape I’m In’, Hopkins aping his hero Levon Helm’s passionate yelp and hitting a closed hi-hat rather than a cymbal, because he knows what he’s doing. They’re a band that sound as good as they look on paper.

My Ma always said if you have nothing nice to say then say nothing, so I’ll be brief about closing act, Jesse John Heffernan. I had heard good things about him, and he acquitted himself well with a recent Late, Late appearance, but he’s not on form tonight. He admits that the band hasn’t rehearsed together, but that’s not a story you should be offering to a paying audience. He’s got some tunes, and he’s got a voice, but if members of your own family start making their excuses before you’re finished, you’re in trouble. I’ll need to go and see him again.

Experience then, as expected, won out, but you’d have to take your hat off to any young musician willing to set foot on the same stage as a band of the Pegs' pedigree. They may have a bit to learn, but they couldn’t ask for a better set of teachers.