The Undertones have always had this Ramones-like contradiction about them. On the surface they look and play like scrappy, leather-jacketed punks with loud guitars, shooting out two-minute bursts of punk rock. But then you listen to the lyrics, you realise they’re singing about girls, chocolate, cousins, awkward crushes, and the very innocent chaos of teenage life. They sound less like snarling anti-establishment outsiders and more like five lads your parents would happily let you hang around with.

I came in through “Teenage Kicks”, of course, the gateway drug for most Undertones fans. And once I had a chance to see them in my hometown, with Paul McLoone fronting, I dove into the back catalogue.

“Hypnotised” has some great hooks: short, bright, unpretentious. The guitars are still doing that ragged, three-chord punk thing, but there’s a lot of colour here, feeling surfy, bubblegum and a bit garage at the same time. Feargal Sharkey sings like he’s somewhere between crooning and yelping. It sounds strange to describe it, but when you listen to The Undertones, it all just clicks perfectly. They just wrote short, perfect songs and played them like they meant it.

As a side note during that hometown gig, a friend of mine, in a moment of pure impulsiveness, stole guitarist John O’Neill’s performer lanyard straight off the stage and used it to get backstage to hang out with The Dirty Three, The Frames and Buddy Guy. And that’s a lot more punk rock than any of the Undertones’ lyrics.