Live music review: Mick Flannery

The Pavilion, Cork

When it comes to discussing Mick Flannery, the comparison with lightning seems a misplaced one, but that is what struck twice when for the second consecutive time the Blarney troubadour hit the number one spot of the album charts with his fourth and latest release By The Rule, deposing Imelda May in the process.

His previous album Red To Blue saw him knock Madonna off her perch. Remarkable because Flannery is not the kind of guy who would get overly involved in the promotional demands of his trade.

No, a more apt a description for Flannery is the slow smouldering burn and at the first of two packed homecoming gigs that’s what he gives his audience.

One would stop short of describing it as triumphant — Flannery doesn’t do fist-pumping or chest-beating either — but that’s what it is.

Flannery eases into his set with some numbers from By The Rule. “I’ve a new album to sell,” he explains, “so I’m playing songs from the new album.”

The between song chat is delivered with an impish grin. The levity a welcome safety valve from his intense studies of lives lived at the margins, but there is an expansiveness in the new numbers. His current band, consisting of O Emperor’s Phil Christie and Alan Comerford on keys and guitar, respectively, Shane Fitzsimons on upright bass, longstanding violinist Karen O’Doherty and producer Christian Best driving things on drums, gives the songs a greater sense of space and weightlessness. His aunt, Yvonne Daly, is on backing vocals.

‘The Small Fire’ soars, propelled by Flannery’s yodel and the chirrup of Hammond organ. ‘I’m On Your Side’ is all fevered whispers.

Things are raised a notch with ‘Wish You Well’ before Flannery takes up piano, a pale ghost under the spotlight revisiting memories of Boston. Equally spectral is his revisiting of Morning Train’s ‘Take It On The Chin’, where a gambler recalls that high stakes game.

The band lock into a sequence of bluesy rockers before Flannery aptly leaves us with the forlorn double whammy of ‘Goodbye’ and ’Safety Rope’.