The Ride or Die Gang

The Ride or Die Gang (Rock Garden, Dublin)

Any reader of Hot Press who has seen those full-page ads will be disappointed to hear that at no point during this gig did any of the four members of the Ride or Die Gang take the time to get his kit off and dangle, tackle out, from the ceiling, flowing locks fluttering in the breeze. Nope, they just carried on playing their rock'n'roll in the hope that we wouldn't notice the absence of flesh. Well it's not on, and the Advertising Standards Authority will be told.

The rock'n'roll part of the evening was quite entertaining, however. Now let's get something perfectly clear - if what you look for in your pop music is originality, subtlety, a reason for living, then look elsewhere. The RODG wear leather jackets and have perms and pony-tails and spare tyre. They are from Dublin and yet they say "She don't need your love no more" instead of "She doesn't need your love any more", and call their mothers "Momma" instead of "Ma" or "Mam". They do things like wheeling out the acoustic guitar for the big ballad (the one about their "Momma", as it happens) and grimacing while their fingers fly around the frets. You know the kind of thing.

But - and here's where the po-faced "Automatic for the People"-lover in me stands back in amazement - it's all O.K., because they do all of the above with a large dollop of humour (well, did you think those photos were a Serious Artistic Statement ?). They are a band to get zonked to or to ogle rock chicks to, a band whose anthems about Tiananmen Square are bearable because they're having such a great time singing them. Laugh, and the world laughs with you, and all that.

If you felt betrayed when R.E.M. released five singles off one album, then this band is probably not for you. But if you want your rock music to be the soundtrack to your Friday night, rather than the soundtrack to your life (or rather than your life being the soundtrack to your music, as a friend of mine once noted disparagingly about a friend of his), if you are free of the musical snobbery which makes people snort derisively when they hear a lyric like "Four legs are better than two/when a man's got a lot of ridin' to do" (from 'Horseback'), then the Ride or Die Gang should hit the spot.

• Niall Crumlish