You know those gigs you’ve been looking forward to for so long, that you’re not worried they won’t live up to expectation? Well this was one of those. The tickets had been sitting on my kitchen table for the best part of six months, and each time I’d notice them, while shovelling in shreddies before work, I’d smile. Yes, there was a lot of pressure heaped upon this night.

John took to the stage a bit after nine, and told of a near disaster, as he almost didn’t make it past the poster of the Irish rugby team that was pinned to the wall back stage! The first song of the evening came with a note for praise for Damien Dempsey, who covered ‘You don’t have to’ recently. John performed a stripped back version, to match Damien’s own. The second song of the evening was a bit of a  disaster! We got to hear a fairly mangled version of ‘Vietnam’, where John admitted afterwards he couldn’t hear what he was singing, due to monitor problems. I was worried at this point, was my dream about to be dashed on the rocks of adversity?

Fear not gentle reader, as the rest of the night was an onslaught of perfect tunes, with John’s own powerful voice a bit more raw than you hear on the album, but that only added to the character. Sinead O’Connor joined him on stage for ‘It doesn’t matter to him’ and then at regular intervals during the evening. The high point for me was a version of ‘Glacier’ with Sinead taking a verse, along with Conor O’Brien of Villagers fame.

The encore was filled with oddities, with a cover of ‘Angel Eyes’ by ABBA, again joined by Conor, before the last song of the evening, a Patsy Cline cover ‘I fall to pieces’ along with a story of being in quarantine in a Ukrainian hospital. John oozes charm, and had a variety of tall tales all night long, along with some great songs off his last two albums. It would be hard to complain about this night of music, and we look forward to his next trip to Ireland, only a few months away!

Samaris played support on the night, a three piece from Iceland with gentle vocals, clarinet and electronics.

John Grant – Olympia Theatre – Dublin