Last week I saw Irish alternative pop band Pugwash at T.T. The Bear’s. I’m going to tell you about it because it was an amazing show. But also, full disclosure, I’m pretty obsessed with this band. Depending on who you ask, I may have even played a role in booking this show.

About five years ago, Irish superstar ’90s Brit-Popper (and Ben Folds Collaborator) Neil Hannon, AKA The Divine Comedy, formed a superduo called the Duckworth Lewis Method, all of whose songs were about the absurd (even to those in the British Isles) sport of cricket. It remains one of my favorite albums ever as there is not a bad note played from start to finish. The other man in this duo is the lesser-known, but equally talented, Thomas Walsh, the frontman and songwriter behind Pugwash. Pugwash had been pumping out high-quality albums unbeknownst to me and North America for years before they started to catch on.

Now they’ve just signed on with Omnivore Records in the U.S. and are touring behind what is essentially a best-of compilation of their first five albums called A Rose In The Garden of Weeds: A Preamble Through The History Of Pugwash. A lot of this tour is touch and go, as their fans are mobilizing and calling them around the country to fill in blank spots on their itinerary.

So they were last up at T.T.’s on a Tuesday night. I was not super pumped to see they had gotten the 11:15 slot, since sometimes the final act is shortened to facilitate closing up shop. The music usually stops at 12.

But there was a decent crowd for Pugwash, as big as I’d seen for any buzzworthy local up-and-comers on a weekend. This must have had something with the fact that they had the opportunity to play for almost an hour and a half. Everybody got their money’s worth in terms of dollar-per-song value.

They jumped all over the map of their long career. For a band that’s selling a new product summing up their 15-year career, they did a great job of hitting every bit of it. But they were also completely irreverent and broke into covers at the slightest suggestion. It was mentioned that their merch guy looked like James Bond and lead guitarist Tosh broke into a rendition of the 007 Theme. They did Badfinger’s “No Matter What” and Free’s “All Right Now,” and plenty I can’t remember, but most of these came just from them plucking and bantering between songs. It was like they had ADD at band practice, but because everyone in the band clearly knew the songs it was pleasant and the audience was in for the ride. I mean, they were getting plenty of Pug songs anyway.

Now, if you listen to Pugwash’s album on Spotify (I would recommend checking out the embedded song which does not appear on the album and was not played that night), you’ll notice it has a super shiny produced pop sound. There are strings and flutes and synths and piano (some courtesy of the aforementioned Mr. Folds) and vocal effects. But Pugwash tour as a four-piece: two guitars, bass, drums. As such, their sound is stripped and some of the production-based bridges were missing, but many songs had backing tracks filling in. This could be incredibly tacky, except they called themselves out on it, jokingly self-aware about their need to travel light.

So the songs, electric guitar heavy as the were, had a more Oasis-y feel to them than I’d previously noticed okay now hold on wait stop right there stop. You’re about to hate on Oasis, which, fine, that’s great, you hate the Gallaghers, next you’re going to tell me you hated Kevin Federline too, right? Congratulations on your unique perspective but let me just point out that Oasis had some amazing songs that you’ve blocked from memory or you never dove in deep enough to enjoy. That’s the comparison I’m bringing up in this paragraph, kindly rid yourself of that sass that i just projected onto you. Guitar rock that had thought in it, that’s the kind of sound I noticed for the first time in Pugwash.

A particularly surreal and unplanned moment: Thomas was having a hard time tuning the A string on his guitar (the band went through some tight jamming [oxymoron?] during this) and finally pleaded to the crowd (“can I buy an A?”) for a tuner. My number one favorite band Fountains of Wayne (yes for serious)’s frontman* brought his phone to the stage and together they collaborated to tune the string.

The next song in their setlist was “There You Are” which starts with the line “All I want is to begin with A.”

Goddamn showmanship.

*he joined the band onstage at a later show to cover The Hollies’ “Bus Stop.”