Lloyd Cole – 3Olympia – Live Review – 27/01/25
by Killian Laher

3Olympia Theatre Dublin on Monday 27th January 2025

Lloyd Cole returned to Ireland for the last show in his ‘mini-tour’ (as he put it) with band in tow.  The band consisted of two ex-Commotions, in Blair Cowan on keyboards and Neil Clark on lead guitar, with Signy Jacobsdottir on drums.  An artist like Cole tends to attract the nostalgia-seeking crowd, with many in attendance there hoping to hear their old favourites.  In fact these days, Lloyd Cole’s head seems to be much more in his electronic crossover stuff than rehashing the old material.

To be fair, the two sets were drawn from right across his career, with the first leaning on more stripped-down material.  Opening with Wolves, the songs were rearranged to suit the band with Cole’s voice right at the centre of it.  With Don’t Look Back and Trigger Happy channelling the younger Cole with lyrics about how “life seems never-ending when you’re young”.  The arrangements were impressive, particularly on On Pain and No More Love Songs.  Why I Love Country Music saw the polite crowd audibly perk up, leading nicely into lovely versions of 2cv, Rattlesnakes and Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken, the latter featuring lovely lead guitar licks from Lloyd Cole.  He followed his version of Undressed by explaining that “any reference to being naked on the hard stone floor” was about him in 1989, not now!  Warm By The Fire is very much the kind of music he really wants to make, but it didn’t really translate live, similarly the plinky-plonky rendering of Night Sweats was a little busy.

The second set saw Cole switch to playing bass, keeping pace on Past Imperfect to allow Neil Clark to unleash some fearsome guitar licks.  The band was polished and well-rehearsed, with fine musicianship on No Blue Skies, Perfect Skin and his mother’s favourite, Myrtle and Rose.  The Over Under was the most successful of the electronic-based tracks, with the band evoking the Blue Nile.

The show culminated in Forest Fire, featuring a scorching guitar solo from Clark, before they returned to play the Lou Reed-sounding Mainstream.  The night finished with the frontman encouraging the crowd to sing along to the last song Jennifer She Said.  A show like this makes you realise that Lloyd Cole is a fine songwriter and an excellent musician, and he and the band managed to tick the nostalgia box while keeping the set fresh.