Whirlygig

Whirlygig

The Shelter, Dublin

There’ll be no slouchily cosy play-for-your-pints seisun tonight: this ten-strong mob storm onto the Shelter stage with the sharpsuited purposefulness of hitmen crashing a gambling den, fedoras cocked, pinstripes flashing like searchlights. They even – like any Dick Tracy cartoon villain would – carry violin cases. Although, in Whirlygig’s case, seeing as they’re the most exciting trad band this side of Kila – they just use them to carry their violins. Probably.

How odd, though, that in the same season that finds Neil Hannon abandoning the studied iconography of the haberdasher’s in favour of honest art in street clothes, a band as exceptional as Whirlygig should choose to obscure their gifts behind a Concept, to raid attic, thriftshop and market-stall for Outfits That Will Get Them Noticed. As if their ability to traipse through a planetful of musical styles (creepy Tom Waitsian whorehouse-blues, delicately unfolding Japanese origami-songs, slow incense-reeking Kashmiri belly-swivellers) - while still being fundamentally Irish-traditional in execution - isn’t already wholly unique. And while the Bugsy Malone act is a bit of fun, it somehow diminishes them, makes them less of a world-class proposition than they are.

So go for the suits, if you must – but stay for the hyper-imaginative arrangements, the wonderful playing, the deft shape-shifting melodies. And you can always shut your eyes.