Folk-tinged Glaswegian eight-piece Belle and Sebastian have been widely touted as saviours of underground - indie - music, hailed as a sort of sprawling, fiddle-infused Smiths for a generation denied a cheek-by-jowl encounter with Morrissey's glad-to-be-glum aesthetic.
What tosh. Making their much awaited Irish debut at the Olympia, Belle and Sebastian breezily side-stepped expectations, confounding us with the same whirling clatter of guitar, string and brass which recently earned them a Brit Award for best newcomer, in a set that pitched and yawed between straight guitar numbers and engrossing ensemble pieces.
When it did occasionally lurch out of control, a welter of influences could be discerned amidst the artful clutter.
So tattered strains of Nick Drake's ethereal fatalism crackled behind singer Stuart Murdoch's aching schoolboy lilt, wisps of the Go-Betweens' faded romanticism drifted like evanescent dry ice over proceedings and (whisper it) there was perhaps a touch of The Smiths' knowing archness in cellist Isobel Campbell's pointed refusal to acknowledge the love-lorn bawls for attention from the audience. Come on lass, ye could have smiled.
But this was no clever-clever unfurling of filched ideas. Songs bounced enthusiastically past like wide-eyed, slobbering puppies.
Ease Your Feet In The Sea, a favourite from current album, The Boy with the Arab Strabj, saw the crowd unleash their pent-up enthusiasm in a bout of self-conscious pogo-ing, while Dog on Wheels, a labyrinthine muddle of Tinderstick's trumpets and blistering Spanish guitars actually provoked a proper rock concert rumble in the dance pit
Between numbers they juggled instruments like hot potatoes; as cowbells, tambourines and flutes flashed past you couldn't help wonder if someone was going to start drumming on a tea chest or strike up a tune on a pair of spoons.
It's the perfect epitome of Belle and Sebastian, a skiffle band showered in fairy dust.