Thanks to Merrill from French Friday for letting us know about this: cult '80s French popstars Les Rita Mitsouko are playing at the newly-refurbished Whelan's in Dublin on Wednesday 17 October.

The duo - singer Catherine Ringer and instrumentalist Fred Chichin - are currently promoting their most recent album, 'Variety', released in April of this year in both French and English versions. Whichever language you listen to it in, though, it's a fairly unspectacular collection of jangly MOR guitar pop.

However, most punters won't care about this, as they will probably be there to hear the French band's fantastic 1980s material. Colourful, brash, bizarre, kitsch, eclectic - singles like 'Marcia Baila' and 'Andy' sound like pop music à la Jean Paul Gaultier. This is a compliment.

In an earlier post we told you all you needed to know about Les Ritas: the explanation of their strange name, the story behind 'Marcia Baila', and Ringer's now-legendary TV clash with Serge Gainsbourg.

We definitely recommend that our Francophile Irish readers check them out. Tickets are available from those usual outlets you know and love.

However, all the French people in Ireland will want to be there - and as there are a lot of French people in Ireland, we reckon that (a) tickets will sell out in Arcade Fire-style time, or (b) it'll all get moved to somewhere bigger.

(We've already mentioned the Dublin promoter who booked Manu Chao - million-selling global star - to play a 2004 show in... Whelan's. The concert eventually took place in... The Point. It doesn't look like today's promoters are any more clued-in to non-Anglophone music and the potential market of non-Irish audiences in Ireland.)

Anyway, here's Les Rita Mitsouko with their hit single 'Andy'. As we said before, only French people can make music like this: