To properly enjoy this CD, it is recommended that you turn it up very loud and have a cold, barley-based beverage within easy reach. - warning on Liverdance

The warning is accurate. Take it very seriously. This CD, from British Columbia's the Town Pants, is a wild, raucous album of live-in-the-pub fun from start to finish.

The band sounds like a legion, but it's actually just Dave Keogh (vocals, banjo, tin whistle) and Duane Keogh (vocals, guitar, spoons), plus musical pals John Leroux (guitar, backing vocals), Michael Cronin (tin whistle, bodhran, backing vocals) and Mary Brunner (fiddle). I don't know how the Keogh boys sound as a duo, but as a quintet, they rock in the best, liveliest Irish sense.

The album was recorded at the Blarney Stone in Vancouver, and the crowd (300 strong, according to the liner notes) is having a blast. The noise enhances the music more than it distracts -- the Keoghs go so far as to credit "rowdy crowd" for "all other noise" on the album, and describe the setting thusly: "As usual, people are singing, dancing, drinking and generally raising the roof. You can hear the drunken sailors, the mad whistler, screaming guy, the off-time clappers, someone dropping a glass in the midst of a rowdy song...."

The songs are standard Irish fair, but pub songs never die as long as they're played with this kind of spirit and enthusiasm. Tracks are "The Holy Ground," "The Mermaid," "Fare Thee Well Enniskillen," "Tim Finnigan's Wake," "Gallant 40 Twa," "Nancy Whiskey," "O'Reilly's Daughter," "Kelly the Boy from Killanne," "Home Boys Home," "Johnson's Motorcar," "MacPhearson's Lament" and "The Wild Rover."

My only regret is I missed this performance. What was I doing in Pennsylvania when Vancouver was so obviously the place to be that day?? Fortunately, I have this treat of a recording to console me, played loudly, with a cold pint at the end of my arm.