If ever you wondered what it is like to find yourself at a lock-in (after hours drinking) in a Belfast music pub, then Man Up serves as an excellent guide, especially if the band playing that night comes from the Pogues / Flogging Molly folk-punk school of raw and reeling singalongs and fist in the air, drink and be damned party music.
The three songs found here perfectly blend Irish folk traditions’ communal nature and the headlong charge’s thrill into punk oblivion. The former adds some restraint and musicality to the latter, and in return, gains from its sonic weight and rabble-rousing spirit.
“Man Up” opens us up, a tangible fist-in-the-air reminder to stop acting soft and get on with the task. Its slower ways make it the perfect sway-along, singalong, swig-along, and swing-along anthem, one that feels like a marching song as you head into the battle we call life. Okay chaps, it’s over the top we go…
“Night of the Leg” drives along on the emotive sound of the whistle and unavoidable lilt, and like all the songs here, it speaks in the unmistakable and uncompromising language of the pub. Things end with the raw rock and roll tones of “Why She Walkin’ Me,” an off-kilter waltz perfect for the walk home in the early hours.
Only the Celts have turned the act of having a few drinks in the pub into a mythology in its own right. Only they can turn the everyday lives of the people around them into the stuff of legend. Only they can turn the pub song into anthems that make you want to storm the barricades, real or imagined. And with one or two more drinks inside you, you will see exactly what they mean!
There is a reason why Seamus Heaney didn’t come from Newport Pagnell!
