Dublin, beautiful capital of Ireland, steeped in history, one of those places that you don't really need any excuse to visit. However, Ian McNabb provides an excellent one with the opening night of his latest tour at one of the city's newest music venues, Vicar Street. It certainly had a "new" feeling to it with its rows of small tables spread out beneath the broad stage, the waiter service and lack of a bar added to the feeling that this wasn't your typical McNabb venue.
I'd barely sat down with the mandatory pint of Guinness when Ian walked on to the stage (at about 9.30p.m.), picked up an acoustic guitar and went straight into the excellent "Sex With Someone You Love." His voice seemed to oscillate somewhat during the first part of the song - maybe he was a little nervous, or more likely the sound was being adjusted. My wife, Sara, had a different theory. She thought that Ian had a cold because his nose looked sore! Apologies to Ian if she's way off! The first set continued pretty much as those at Ronnie Scotts had, which is understandable as it seemed to work well then and only a limited number of McNabb fans had managed to make it to those shows. Glorious reworkings of "Out of Season" and "Love is a Wonderful Colour" were amongst the highlights, the set closing with an aggressive "Fire Inside my Soul" segued into a solitary verse and chorus of "Light my Fire" which showed up Ian's voice to be as strong as ever.
One short break later and the man was back, kicking off the second set with the superb "Loveless Age." Ian now seemed more relaxed - perhaps having fulfilled his tongue in cheek intention to do some drugs (medicinal ones for his cold, naturally!) during the interval! - and his humour and chat, noticeably absent in the first set, now flowed freely, "Liverpool Girl" coming to a temporary halt after the word "crisps" - "It gets better! How many other songs do you know that mention crisps?!" Somewhat appropriately, "Merseybeast" followed and Ian now really appeared to be enjoying himself. Roy Corkill (bass) and Mokka (keyboards) then assisted briefly with a singalong "You Stone my Soul"("This is turning into the Merseybeast promotional tour!"). Ian then took requests, I didn't catch what one person shouted but the reply came "That was a shit song in 1982!," whilst another for "Cortez the Killer" met with the response, "I don't do any Neil Diamond songs!" Ignoring my shouts for "In the Dance the Shamen Led," Ian belted out "Evangeline" on electric guitar and then played a slowed down, and as a result much improved, "Love's Young Dream." Two more splendid new songs from A Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Emotional Party closed the set, "The Man Who Can Make a Woman Laugh" and then the pick of the new songs (in my humble opinion), "Little Princess."
Ian returned with Roy and Mokka to close the show with "one I recorded with Neil Diamond's band," "Child Inside a Father." The show was well received by those present (the venue was probably 70% full downstairs but the upstairs balcony didn't appear to be open) and Ian was happy to stay on chatting to fans and signing anything thrust his way, mostly copies of the new album and the lyric book (which are both on sale at the shows).
He hinted that he could be touring with a band early next year, explained that the mysterious artwork for the new album is a photo of stones on New Brighton beach that's been played around with and told the superb "Neil Young's Dad" anecdote - you'll have to ask him about that one yourself!
* with Roy Corkill on bass and Mokka on keyboards
Alan Tonge, Bristol, UK
14 October 1998.
This document Copyright © 1998, Alan Tonge. All rights reserved. Reproduced with
permission.
The right of Alan Tonge to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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