Everlast and Danny Boy sure aren’t what you’d expect. Ageing remnants of a hip-hop subculture whose presence has all but faded from mainstream consciousness, the two remaining members of House Of Pain decided to reform last year, fourteen years after their original break-up. After original third member DJ Lethal went on to join nu-metal catastrophe Limp Bizkit and Everlast achieved huge solo success with 1998’s Whitey Ford Sings The Blues, the boys have re-united and are working together on a new album.

I’d heard that the group had always been surprising and convention-defying in the flesh, and the prospect of seeing the producers of Jump Around, one of my first tastes of rap music back in 1992, live and on stage was too good to pass up, so I trundled down to Manning Bar on Friday night.

To my amazement, the place was surprisingly empty. The last gig I saw at Manning Bar had been Seekae a few weeks ago, which was heaving. The difference here, however, was the immediately obvious dedication and commitment of the fans that were there; every other person was a stocky, bearded white dude with a do-rag and a Boston Celtics jersey. I knew straight away I was in niche territory.

When Everlast and Danny Boy took to the stage with their trio of musicians, they opened with a funky-as-all-hell instrumental version of hip-hop staple Apache, before commencing the rap gig proper with Danny Boy, Danny Boy from their 1992 self-titled debut album. From there the boys moved through their biggest songs whilst also taking in a whistle-stop tour of hits from the golden age of hip-hop, throwing in signatures from songs like Dr. Dre’s The Next Episode and Joe Cocker’s Woman To Woman (best known for its sampled use in California Love by 2Pac and Dre).

Taking in a few tracks from 1994’s Same As It Ever Was such as Who’s The Man and Back From The Dead, the gig’s front-on and sensationalist production gave Manning Bar a ‘state of emergency’ feel to it – you felt as though riot police were going to be zip-lining in through the windows with batons and shields any minute.

For the middle third of the gig, Danny Boy disappeared off stage and we were left with Everlast and the musicians, the former of whom re-visited his blues leanings by indulging us with a few expertly-played old blues numbers, including an exceptional cover of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues. I don’t think any one of us in Manning Bar were expecting to hear any Johnny Cash tunes cracked out when we rocked up to the gig that night, but as I said, House Of Pain know how to surprise you.

The live instrumentalists sounded excellent, not just in the blues section of the gig, but all through it. Something about House Of Pain’s inimitable style of angry white hip hop was greatly augmented by the immediacy of live drumming and larger-than-life bass runs, as though the white-hot and furious lyrical delivery of the rappers is being matched by the instruments.

Danny Boy returned to the stage for the band’s closing number, the one we’d all been waiting to hear since we bought our tickets – the era-defining Jump Around. And let me tell you: It. Went. Off. Some moshed, some bounced, some swaggered, but the whole of Manning Bar got up out their seat and jumped around, producing a live spectacle that’s up there with one of the best songs I’ve seen performed live. After Jump Around drew to a close, the gig ended abruptly, with the boys saying quick thank yous to the crowd and then almost hurrying off into the wings, leaving the stage in the same perplexing and bizarre manner which they’d played the whole gig.

Though musically surprising and unpredictable, House Of Pain still managed to serve up steaming bowlfuls of exactly what the audience had paid to see, whilst still retaining no small degree of creative and musical spontaneity. An eerily empty Manning Bar led to an atmosphere which left something to be desired on a few songs, but all in all, these lads have still got it.