Movie review: Love Yourself Today is a concert film that’s about more than the music
Love Yourself Today
★★★★☆
It’s not exactly a concert movie, but Love Yourself Today (12A) revolves around Damien Dempsey’s annual Christmas gigs at Dublin’s Vicar Street venue.
Filmed in 2019, Ross Killeen’s feature-length debut captures the uncanny bond between Dempsey and his fans: indeed, the gigs seem to be less music concerts than spiritually therapeutic love-ins. Cutting from live performance to behind-the-scenes footage of Dempsey talking about the ‘healing’ quality of his ‘autobiographical’ songs, and interviewing some of his fans as they explain how Dempsey’s music was crucial to their own healing, the documentary has a holistic quality in which performer, music and audience seem to meld into one.
It’s an exhilarating watch, as Dempsey — an Irish Billy Bragg, for the uninitiated — blends politics, poetry and raw emotion into a ‘sacred’ singsong that reduces many of the audience to tears.
The highlight is Missing You Today, but this is a concert film that’s about much more than the music, and one that fairly crackles with the intensity of the connection between audience and stage.
