Swervedriver/Garland Sun

Swervedriver/Garland Sun (Rock Garden, Dublin)

God, the stages are so small in these places.

To really do justice to Swervedriver's music, you'd need another five guitarists at least. Or preferably twenty-odd, so that the intricacies and relatively quietish, hidden chord changes that make their otherwise one-dimensional noise assault special could be a part of their live show as well as their records. But that would entail buying the premises on either side of the venue to create sufficient space for all those extra axe thrashers, so I guess it ain't gonna happen.

So, to compensate, Swervedriver turned it up. There wasn't much movement on stage, and the light show was a bit perfunctory, so to get the crowd going, the services of extreme volume were enlisted. Motion was restricted to singer/guitarist Adam's occasional flicking back of his dreads so he could have a clear view of the mixing desk, at which he gazed intently all night.

But, then again, you can't dance when your only desire is to make your six strings wish they'd never been strung, and the depth of concentration and the amount of recalling of distasteful memories that goes into successfully getting across a song like 'Last Train to Satan' kind of rules out any poncing about the stage bashing a mic off your pert little bottom.

However, the lack of variation in dynamics and performance made over an hour of this a tad wearing, and even though things picked up at the end, with "Motorbike"'s transfixing, strangulated, perpetual motion riff suggesting that time had ceased to be linear and had become circular, and what's more, I was glad it had, calls for an encore were made purely out of habit.

Garland Sun opened the show, and I couldn't help but think of the Lemonheads; primarily because one of their singer/guitarists is the spit of Evan Dando, especially when he tilts his head ever so slightly to the left and lets his sprawling mane occlude his features, and also because the two bands share a love of shambolicness which any slacker would be proud of.

Musically, though, there isn't much common ground - Garland Sun perhaps owe more to the very loud sonic attack of the headliners, and the singers with both of tonight's bands have a fondness for making every syllable inaudible. I really, really wish bands wouldn't do that.

P.S. If Michael O'Hara, ex- of this parish, he who is to rock journalism what J. Armitage Shanks is to bog bowl design, i.e. the most brilliant exponent I know, is reading this, then I hope you enjoyed the gig, and congrats on your recent marriage and more recent promotion and, em, get back writing soon, will ya, huh, will ya? The fortnight's not the same without you.

• Niall Crumlish