Bill Callahan – Button Factory – Live Review – 23-09-24
by Killian Laher

Bill Callahan returned to Ireland for his first visit in five years to play two sold-out shows in the Button Factory.  Support came from American singer-songwriter Jerry David DeCicca, who played a set of old-fashioned country folk, playing guitar and harmonica.  Most tracks were taken from his recent album New Shadows, including the title track.  His between song conversation was good-humoured and amiable and he topped it off with the somewhat throwaway Texas Toad.

Bill Callahan was joined by Jim White on percussion, and he opened with a gorgeous rendition of Jim Cain.  With White playing mostly with brushes, a fairly straight version of Smog’s Our Anniversary followed before the duo began experimenting with stretching out the songs, incorporating samples.  There was an interlude where Callahan told a story about his pants being held up by a 1/16th of a button, which had some in the audience volunteering a safety pin!  It didn’t all work, 747 featured a Laurie Anderson-style vocal sample which distracted from the song, and the otherwise gorgeous River Guard featured some seemingly superfluous shuffling noises.  Sycamore was completely stripped back as to be almost unrecognisable, which actually did work.

Partition was rendered as something of a workout with Callahan and White bringing the song to borderline cacophony towards the end.  During Cowboy, he threw in a line or two about running down the river Liffey, which is quite the image, and Coyotes got stretched out with Callahan repeatedly singing “I’m your loverloverloverloverloverman”.  The performance was brave, pushing songs like Drover into new territory, alternately dropping the intensity before whipping up a mighty boil of sound.

At times they seemed to challenge the songs to bring them into a new direction, One Fine Morning was completely different to the recorded version.  However, they played a lovely version of Riding for the Feeling before finishing off with Rock Bottom Riser.  This last one featured samples of a child (presumably Callahan’s) which made an already poignant song, even more so, real lump-in-the-throat stuff.  Although he played it relatively straight he found time to mention “I love the mother of my children… and the father that I want to be”.  It was quite the ending to the show.

Callahan looked to be having an absolute ball up there on the stage, dancing about to some of the lengthier songs without missing a note.  While it didn’t all work, at times the gig was spellbinding.