Review: Niall Horan at the INEC - He'll be lighting up the pop firmament for quite a while yet

By Des O’Driscoll

[rating]4[/rating]

It might only be a 3½-hour drive from Mullingar to Killarney, but Niall Horan’s journey from his hometown to the stage of the INEC has been epic.

Plucked from obscurity by Louis Walsh on The X Factor in 2010, he was teamed with four fellow-teenagers to form One Direction, the phenomenally successful boy band the world hadn’t realised it needed.

With that group on an extended hiatus (none of them have used the word ‘break-up’), Horan’s solo career is off to a flying start.

The 24-year-old has already had two top 20 hits from his debut album Flicker, and tonight he stands before an adoring crowd at a packed INEC on the first night of a world tour that will take him through to September. Living the dream, indeed.

The crowd is mostly a mix of parents bringing younger kids to what is surely their first gig; and Horan’s core audience of phone-wielding 15-year-old girls.

He takes to the stage with his band to the loudest squeals you’ll hear this side of Beatle-mania, and immediately plays two songs straight through.

This slightly business-like attitude is later explained by Horan’s confession that he had been in the Kerry town for the past four days, putting the finishing touches on the mammoth undertaking ahead of him.

He even confesses to feeling nervous before the gig, and in general cuts a down-to-earth figure on stage, not overly stratified by all he’s experienced over the past eight years.

Horan soon warms to his task in more ways than one, mentioning how hot it is in the venue, and that he feels like he’s worn the wrong trousers to the club; cue a chant of “Take them off! Take them off!”. He giggles awkwardly before launching into another song.

Musically, Horan has taken a step away from 1D towards acoustic love songs and the soft rock of bands such as Fleetwood Mac. Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’ gets an airing, while another unexpected cover comes from Camila Cabello’s ‘Crying in the Club’.

The two One Direction songs are among the best- recieved on the night — slow ballad ‘Fool’s Gold’ and catchy megahit ‘Drag Me Down’, the latter forming part of the encore with ‘Slow Hands’.

There’s no shortage of former boyband members whose star-power quickly faded after they had their day in the sun; you get the sense that Niall Horan will be lighting up the pop firmament for quite a while yet.