The Rubberbandits are already hip hop heroes in their homeland thanks to a winning combination of their Limerick twang and the ability to drop references to Dr Dre and hurling in the same breath. The easiest point of reference would be Goldie Lookin' Chain, South Wales's answer to the Wu-Tang Clan. But this would do the 'Bandits little justice – and you wouldn't dare say it to their faces.
Mr Chrome and Blindboy Boat Club are a fearsome pair – hubcap-stealing, glue-huffing scumbags wearing balaclavas fashioned from plastic bags. Behind them on the decks, in a moustachioed rubber mask, is DJ Willie O'Dea-J; it seems Ireland's former Minister for Defence has found his true calling and is even more of a reprobate than his bandmates. Attention drifts to the sight of Willie slowly, mutely losing his mind on a deadly mix of Class-As.
Tonight it's standing room only, a wise move that fosters a suitably riotous atmosphere. Beefed up with big beats and slick visuals, the songs are tightly written – pleasingly juvenile but shot through with daft satire and character, and never a forced rhyme.
'Spastic Hawk' and 'Black Man', as the titles suggest, dice with shockingly bad taste, while 'Up the RA' is a hopelessly misinformed lesson in Irish history. But it's 'Spoiling Ivan' that proves the highlight, a touching story of what happens when a bag-faced lunatic falls for a six year-old boy. It's a delicate balance of platonic innocence and implied menace that, crucially, never ventures into the truly wrong, and shows the Rubberbandits at their finest.