Anthemic guitar band Dirty Stevie and punk agitators The Tin Pot Operation will go toe-to-toe tomorrow for a show that has the kind of build up normally reserved for title bouts.

We got Dirty Stevie frontman Brian 'Smitty' Smyth and the Tin Pot Operation's Anthony 'Anto' O'Kane to trade blows in the run up to the fight...sorry, I mean gig.

How come the two of you are playing a gig together?
Smitty: They've been moaning at us for years to have a gig with them. Even when we were in London they moaned and even when we spilt up two years ago. Now we're back, they still moaned, so we thought we would give them their wish.
Anto: I think Dirty Stevie are just looking a bit of publicity on the back of our recent successes playing the New Year's concert along with Ocean Colour Scene, and being hand-picked by the Damned for the Belfast
leg of their Twisted Cabaret tour, not to mention the buzz surrounding the upcoming release of our album Human Resources. We thought we'd help them out.

Will there be enough room for the collected egos?
Smitty: There's barely enough room for my ego.
Anto: I am a Buddhist and therefore fragile, transient notions of "self" are of no interest to me.
Though I heard Smitty has requested to have access to the Crescent Arts Centre as his personal dressing room, and have it draped in white Egyptian cotton, and filled with rare orchids and bottles of '68 Rothschild; warmed to precisely 19 degrees, between the thighs of
an Anglican Bishop.

How would you describe the other band's music?
Smitty: Badly-written political nonsense about the failings the capitalist state and love songs about spides.
Anto: Safe.

Do you feel there's a certain amount of pressure on you to perform?
Smitty: None at all, if we do what we're capable of, then we show that we're the best rock band in the country, bar none.
Anto: At the start of the TPO everyone expected us to fail, and many wished it: we usually did.
Then we started disappointing all those who wanted us to fail.
Now we are expected to be great, given the work it's taken to get us this far, that's not pressure, it's a reward.

Was there any argument about who would be headlining?
Smitty: No, we headline this gig, then they headline the follow-up, which will be somewhere they choose before the end of the year.
Anto: As a sop to the football-obsessed Smitty, we are running it as a two-leg gig. The Bunker is our away game. The home game will be at a venue of our choosing, later in the summer.

What can fans expect from the show?
Smitty: Loads of new material from both bands, great songs and a bit of attitude, which this city has been sadly missing for the last couple of years from bands.
Anto: 45 minutes of great music, followed by Dirty Stevie.

What's the worst thing you've said about the other band online?
Smitty: This is a family newspaper, it seriously couldn't be printed.
Anto: That's a hard one. Most of it would be unprintable for a whole ream of legal reasons.
Though Grizz (Dirty Stevie's drummer) is the spit for the chubby cop from Heroes.

Do you think this gig will smooth your relationship out or will it stoke up the rivalry?
Smitty: Frankly, I couldn't care less what happens, it's just another gig on the road to making Dirty Stevie the best band in the country all over again.
Anto: I think the relationship will get a lot smoother when they split up from embarrassment, immediately after the gig.

Dirty Stevie and The Tin Pot Operation perform in Lavery's Bar, Belfast, tomorrow (Saturday, March 22) night. Admission is £4.