The Hot 8 Brass Band, live at The Sugar Club

Bringing a flavour of Mardi Gras to Dublin on St Paddy’s night, The Hot 8 Brass Band turn The Sugar Club into a hot and heaving bayou party. Temperatures might have be breath-freezingly cold outside, but the Louisiana eight ensure that inside The Sugar Club is as breathy and sweaty as a New Orleans speakeasy in high summer.

Having garnered increased exposure since appearing in David Simon’s Treme, the masterful series about post-Katrina Louisiana, the eight-piece do exactly what it says on the tin: delivering a funked-up masterclass in N’awlins jazz, bounce, soul and hip-hop, exhorting the full house to party with a capital ‘P’. At times, they overegg it, turning what could be a five-minute stomper into ten minutes plus of extended jam, and there’s definitely a hint of filler and flab around the mid-section, but when they hit their stride, it’s like experiencing a second line parade first-hand.

The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’ is reinvigorated with a brass bounce that’s straight from the bayou, while their infamous take on Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing’ has the deliciously sleazy punch to wallop you straight in the gut, built on the funkiest tuba you’re ever likely to hear.