I arrived at The Garage, Highbury Corner, just in time to catch the main support, Jesse James. Jesse James are a trans-Atlantic seven piece that someone had mistakenly described to me as a ska band. Gawd, thought I at the time, a ska band in 2005. Nobody plays ska now. Didn’t they get the memo?

As it turns out, they weren’t a ska band at all. The source of the confusion was their horn section (‘bone, trumpet and sax), augmenting a two guitar four piece punk band. Their sound was more soul-punk in the vein of the dearly departed Rocket From the Crypt than Reel Big Fish, though they did at times remind me of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones at their ska-core heaviest. Later one of the members did reveal to me that their hearts lay closer to Motown than Two-Tone.

The gathering audience of antipodean expatriates and multinational punk enthusiasts weren’t terribly impressed, but the band didn’t care. They put in a confident, cocky performance, swapping lead vocals and the horns providing gang vocals, swapping cigarettes, playing air guitar on trombones and engaging in other hi-jinks when not fattening up the sound.

The Rules of Punk, 2005, states clearly that no band shall have a horn section, save Rocket From The Crypt, lest they be thought wankers. Jesse James reply: Fuck the Rules.

Similarly shouting Fuck the Rules for two decades, give or take have been the Punchbowl’s finest, the Hard-Ons.

The Rules of Punk circa the ‘80s stated: no long hair, no extended guitar noodling, no psychadaelic freak-outs and any attempt at humour must be submitted to the Committee for Acceptable Expressions in Accordance with Punk Dogma in advance and in triplicate.

Enter the Hard-Ons. Exit the rulebook.

The performance tonight was effectively divided into two halves. The first half kicked off with Sunny, classic melodic pop-punk Hard-Ons style with Blackie providing a relaxed melodic vocal over buzzsaw guitars. So far so familiar for anyone who didn’t know the band. For the fashion spotters, tonight Blackie was rocking a black Birthday Party shirt and blue boardshorts. Rumbling bassist Ray Ahn wore black jeans and a t-shirt for the band (I hope) Thrush and kit-punishing never-miss-a-beat Pete Kostic was sporting wicked side-burns and a t-shirt from cowpunks SixFtHick.

The first song ended. Then everything took an abrupt left turn into darker, murkier territory.

Howling feedback, frenetic solos, driving, growling bass and snapping drums assaulted the audience, as old and new songs were thrown out to the crowd. Six or seven songs later the trio were joined by a slim, dark, clean cut figure in boot-cut blue jeans and a spotless Velvet Underground t-shirt. It took a few seconds for a few of the crowd to realise that this was Keish, the original drummer and lead singer. From here it was an excursion into the poppier, more melodic side of the Hard-ons, past and present. The old fans loved it, singing along to the songs they knew.

Highlights included Dull and the historically controvesial Girl in a Sweater (see Your Name’s On The Door). During this time Keish showed himself to be a surprisingly good frontman, constantly swaggering and grooving even through the most extended instrumental sections, never once looking like he didn’t belong front and centre. Strange that he spent so many years hidden behind the kit.

They finished the set with the charmingly titled favourite Suck n Swallow, rendered as an extended, apocalyptically noisy jam.After that the band left the stage. But the crowd would not have it. They chanted and cheered until all four returned for a few more numbers. Insane dancing and stage diving ensued.

The band left the stage again. Still the crowd would not let them leave! So they fought their jet lag one last time and threw out two more songs, including She’s a Dish from 1992, which features a stonerish pre-chorus riff, layered with a second guitar one harmonised on record with a second guitar. On stage Blackie somehow managed to make it sound like he was playing the harmony. The man is a mutant.

Finally the audience begrudgingly let them go.

A musical trainspotter would have observed that the show covered a ridicluously wide spectrum of musical styles, including melodic punk, proto-hardcore, sludgecore, grindcore, primal thrash, seventies hard rock, MC5 style acid freakouts and other psychadaelic shenanigans.

But that’s missing the point. The point is that the Hard-ons are not just to be read at one level or interpreted to be only one thing. The point is that the band can cover all these spaces and still be unambiguously the Hard-Ons, 100%. The Yardbirds reached a point where they had to become Led Zeppelin. The Boys Next Door had to become the Birthday Party.

But as long as they sling their guitars ridiculously low and set the standard ridiculously high, they will always be the Hard-Ons.