Adrian Crowley – Project Arts Centre – Live Review – 11/04/25
by Killian Laher

Adrian Crowley – Foggy Notions presents – 11th April 2025

The Project Arts Centre was the venue for the headline Dublin show from Adrian Crowley.  Crowley has probably the ultimate slow-burn career, with each album gradually gaining slightly more acclaim, right up to this year’s Measure of Joy.  He started with Trembling Cup, alone on guitar.  An early highlight was Deep Dark Blue, where true to the title, the music felt like it hit you in the gut, Crowley accompanying himself on mellotron.

Proceedings moved up a notch when Crowley was joined by Lisa Dowdall and Maria Ryan on violin, and Sean MacErlaine on bass clarinet.  A long-drawn out version of Swimming In The Quarry was a high point of the set.  This song saw the musicians take something of the spirit of the Velvet Underground as the feverish violins were joined by some fairly experimental clarinet playing.  As Crowley said himself, he recently discovered bossanova ‘accidentally’ on his mellotron, and it formed the basis for Cherry Blossom Soft Confetti, again enhanced by the string and wind instruments, as the singer adlibbed a gently humorous, elongated coda.

After a brief pause, Crowley returned for a rendition of Northbound Stowaway, drawing out the tension in the song to the limit with his rolling guitar figures before finishing with Take Me Driving.  Many of Adrian Crowley’s fans feel he doesn’t get the credit he deserves, and his refusal to play any kind of ‘game’ doesn’t lend itself to slabs of praise, but this is an artist who definitely deserves more attention.