Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip / B Dolan / Team Fresh: Stiff Kitten, Belfast, 27/04/10

A lack of ticket sales heading into a midweek gig is never the recipe for a classic night, but the 'downgrading' of Tuesday night's venue from Mandela Hall to the trendy and intimate Stiff Kitten turned out to be a mild stroke of genius... albeit a necessary one.

The North Coast's own Team Fresh waste no time in lighting a fire under the arse of the filling room. There is nothing pretentious about it; straight up party music delivered with an oddly satisfying swagger. It is hard not to warm to this band, sounding a little bit like a Portrush-accented Beastie Boys/Spin Doctors hybrid. Whether rhyming about Buckfast and partying, or religious division in Northern Ireland, they play with heart. The kind of band that, given the choice, wouldn't be on stage looking down at an audience, but rather right in the middle of it, surrounded by friends and equals. An encouraging start.

B Dolan is a larger than life character. The New York native blends hard hitting atmospheric Hip-Hop with surreal onstage antics and genuinely funny banter. A complete package, with microphone skills that would have Fifty Cent quaking in his kevlar. How could a night not be going well when, after a melodic tirade against Sarah Palin, Dolan strips off his clothes to reveal a worn out Evel Knievel costume (complete with cape). It's hard to imagine a crowd reacting so well to an 18 stone man jumping over three eager volunteers lying prone onstage, but it happened. And it was great. Maybe you had to be there...

When Dan Le Sac fights his way through the crowd to the small Stiff Kitten stage and bursts into set opener 'The Beat That My Heart Skipped', the noise in the building is dizzying. Scroobius Pip is the conductor, and the hour and a half that follows is intense. The duo have been on tour in Europe for months, and with tonight being the last stop they are intent on leaving the road on a high. The Belfast faithful do not disappoint; writhing, bouncing and shouting hooks and lines back at them. The set heaves and refrains, settling somewhere between intelligent and frank spoken word, genre defying hip hop and an all out 1990's drum and bass rave. Put simply, it is excellent.

As B Dolan leaps from the stage and gets carried into the distance, and all involved manage to wipe the tears of joy from their faces, Dan Le Sac spins into the fantastic 'Thou Shalt Always Kill'. As Scroobius Pip declares his manifesto to the people, they reciprocate with geniune appreciation for two artists who will always have a home in Belfast.

Dropkick Murphys/Face To Face: Mandela Hall, Belfast, 20/04/10

If you had told me a fortnight ago that I'd be sitting at my desk on the 20th April, wondering if an erupting volcano had prevented the Dropkick Murphys from arriving in Belfast I'd probably have backed away slowly and pointed at you.

Thankfully though, come 8pm the Mandela hall was jammed with the usual mob of skanking skinnies, far-too-drunk underagers and impossibly wet pit-junkies. It was good to be back after what had seemed like a cold, dark and dull winter.

Face to Face opened the show with unexpected energy. The vintage California 4-piece tore without hesitation through a half hour set of old and new material, including Guitar Hero 5 anthem 'Disconnected'. This band, long considered the 'Anvil' of punk rock, showed no signs of age as they punched out anthem after drunken singalong. It's nothing new or revolutionary, but it certainly hits all the right notes. If Agnostic Front and Bouncings Souls had a lovechild, it would play this in the car with the windows down.

If there's one thing that can be said for the Dropkick Murphys, they sure as hell know how to throw a party. From the ferocious opening fightsong 'For Boston', through to the stage-laden singalong 'Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced' the band barely stop for breath. It's a formula that has been tried and tested in cities and towns the world over... and for me, that seems to be the problem.

The ageing Celtic-Punkers raise their well rehearsed and undeniably rowdy version of hell on the Mandela Hall, and an audience half their age lap it up with enthusiasm. But I'm left feeling a little let down. The modern-day Dropkick Murphys pretend to be a punk band in the same way that Twilight pretends to be a novel. To the young and ill informed, it's a great experience, and one they are most welcome to. But the knowledge that there are so many fresh and exciting bands passing through Belfast and playing in front of 30 people is just too large a pill to swallow. The next generation is being routinely ignored by the masses in favour of the slightly corny, safe alternative.

And that is the death knell of any local music scene.