sprocketgrouppic-1024x682The strange scent in the air is the first thing you notice arriving in Whelan’s for The Hot Sprockets gig, and not just because it’s April 20th. Sticks of incense burn behind the bar, carnival lights and many instruments are sprawled across the stage and the venue’s tremendous ability to transform to suit whatever act is playing that night is put into good effect. The general atmosphere is a bit like a Kool-Aid Acid Test during a poker tournament set in a circus tent in a film directed by Melvin van Peebles, to be specific about it.

It’s an enthusiastic crowd that gathers before the stage to welcome the opening act, Markas Carcas, who are the practitioners of a strange rootsy sound with heavy metal overtones, and a traditional busker’s setup (save the electric bass). Their set has all the best qualities of those three things, a fullness of sound, an engaging rhythm and a natural interaction with the environment. For a venue less than half full they could have been the main attraction, but they were but the first of three.

The second act Cry Monster Cry is more distinctly about the songs than about tone-setting. Assorted arrangements of drums, bass, mandolin, banjo, guitar and vocal harmonies come in and out of their set and taken as a whole it is filled with eclectic sounds and a variety of tempos, some of which work perfectly for the atmosphere of the place, others of which are hard to make out over the chattering of the ever increasing audience.

Then comes the main act, kitted out like ‘Electric Ladyland’ was released only yesterday and popping off like a fireworks display. They start out with Cruizin’, guitars and drums pounding in perfect tandem, and don’t let up until Long Way From Home which is like a lull to allow everyone to catch their breath at the top of the mountain before free-wheeling it all the way back down again.

The Hot Sprockets’ set is not so much like a progression of songs as it is like a symphony of hard-rock in that the whole thing feels designed around a single theme, with the rhythm and chord changes aiming to provoke emotions rather than express any. Those emotions are whatever it is that makes a person or crowd lose its composure; when people, quite literally, are lifted into the air, their feet off the ground like the eponymous character from the song Soul Brother, which itself acts like a crescendo for the whole gig. It’s the spirit of Saturday night, not in exploration but in action.

The crowd goes so nuts that your eyes start to get diverted from the stage, like the whole room has become the show and the audience at once. The sound from the amps and the cheering and incessant chattering from the rest of the place meld into one whole mantra that seems to shake the floor and by the time they’ve come back for the encore, amps at 11, the venue is like an oven where everyone’s being cooked and nobody minds. It’s a manic night of pure unpretentious rock delivered expertly by the hardest working band in Irish rock.