Smog dissolves as Bill finds wider audience

Bill Callahan plays the Olympia in Dublin next month. When the American played a smaller venue, The Academy, a few years ago, it was packed, as was Whelan’s a few years before that, when Callahan made his last appearance under his alias, Smog.

The Olympia is associated with mainstream artists. Though Callahan has increased his profile in recent years, largely on the back of 2009’s stunning album, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, his audience seems to be ageing indie cognoscenti. Hopefully, the Olympia date indicates change.

Callahan should be embraced by a wider audience. An heir to Leonard Cohen, he’s everything a vocational songwriter should be — eloquent, curious, whimsical, and yet grounded, methodical, and committed to his craft. As a singer, he has a supple baritone that hides itself in a low rumble before soaring upwards.